He was asked about the condition of those who preceded and those who were left from the generations, and about the misery of those who were miserable among them and the happiness of those who were happy. He answered that this is a question about the unseen, and Allah has kept it to Himself; no one knows it except Him. I am only a servant like you; I do not know anything of it except what has been informed to me by the All-Knowing. The knowledge of the conditions of the generations is written with Allah in the Preserved Tablet. It is not permissible for Allah to make a mistake about anything or to forget it. It is said: You have gone astray from something if you missed it in its place and did not find it, as you say: I went astray from the road and the house. And it is read: يضل (yudhil), from أضله (adhalahu) if he lost it. And from Ibn Abbas: No one who disbelieves in Him will be left unpunished, and no one who worships Him alone will be left without reward. It is possible that Pharaoh contested the encompassing knowledge of Allah over everything and His clarity of every known thing, and he obstinately said: What do you say about the past generations, and the multitude of them, and the distance of their numbers? How has He encompassed them and their parts and their essences?

He answered that every being is encompassed by His knowledge, and it is established with Him in a Book, and it is not permissible for Him to make a mistake or forget, just as it is not permissible for you, O humble servant and insignificant human, that you go astray as you go astray, nor forget as you forget, O claimant of divinity with ignorance and audacity, which has made a raised attribute for my Lord. Or it is a news of a deleted subject or an accusative for praise, and this is from its places and its meanings, مَهْداً (mahdan) reading of the people of Kufa, meaning: He made it a cradle.

Or they are being cradled; it is for them like a cradle, which is what is prepared for the child. And it is derived from His saying: ما سَلَكَكُمْ فِي سَقَرَ (What has brought you into Saqar?), سَلَكْناهُ (We have made it a path), نَسْلُكُهُ فِي قُلُوبِ الْمُجْرِمِينَ (We will make it a path in the hearts of the criminals), meaning: paths were made for you in it among the mountains, valleys, and wilderness. Then we transitioned from the words of the unseen to the words of the commanded speaker, due to what was mentioned of the trial. [Mahamud said: This is from the aspect of turning... etc. Ahmad said: The turning only occurs in the speech of one speaker, who directs his speech in various ways, and what we are in is not from that. For Allah, the Exalted, narrated from Moses, blessings and peace be upon him, his saying to Pharaoh: عِلْمُها عِنْدَ رَبِّي فِي كِتابٍ لا يَضِلُّ رَبِّي وَلا يَنْسى (Its knowledge is with my Lord in a Book; my Lord does not go astray and does not forget), then His saying: الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْأَرْضَ مَهْداً (Who made for you the earth a cradle) until His saying: فَأَخْرَجْنا بِهِ أَزْواجاً مِنْ نَباتٍ شَتَّى (And We brought forth thereby pairs of various plants). It may be that it is from the saying of Moses and is from the speech of the special ones of the king: We commanded and we ruled, and they only mean the king, and this is not turning. Or it may be that the speech of Moses ended at His saying: وَلا يَنْسى (and does not forget), then Allah began to describe Himself with the attributes of the general ones upon His creation, so it is not turning either; rather, it is a transition from narration to the establishment of speech. On this interpretation, the reader should pause at His saying: وَلا يَنْسى (and does not forget) to settle that the narration has ended. And another possibility is that Moses described Allah with these attributes in the words of the unseen, saying: الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْأَرْضَ مَهْداً (Who made for you the earth a cradle) وَسَلَكَ لَكُمْ فِيها سُبُلًا (and made therein for you paths) وَأَنْزَلَ مِنَ السَّماءِ ماءً (and sent down from the heaven water), فَأَخْرَجْنا بِهِ أَزْواجاً مِنْ نَباتٍ شَتَّى (and We brought forth thereby pairs of various plants). So when Allah narrated it, He attributed the pronoun to Himself, because the narrator is the one being narrated in the speech of Moses, so the reference of the two pronouns is one. This interpretation is a good, precise one, and it is the closest of the interpretations to turning, but Al-Zamakhshari did not consider it, and Allah knows best.

Is He who created the heavens and the earth and sent down for you from the sky water, and with it We brought forth gardens of delightful beauty? And in this, there is also specification that We are indeed capable of such a thing, and it does not fall under the ability of anyone else. Pairs of kinds, they are called so because they are double and coupled with one another. Various is an adjective for the pairs, the plural of shatī, like a patient and patients. It may also be an adjective for the plants, and the plant is a source named after the growing one, as it is named after the sprout. Thus, it applies to both singular and plural, meaning that they are various, differing in benefit, taste, color, scent, and shape, some of which are suitable for people and some for animals. They said: Among His blessings, exalted and mighty is He, is that the provisions of the servants are obtained through the work of the livestock, and Allah has made their fodder from what exceeds their need and which they cannot eat. That is, saying: 'Eat and graze,' is a state of the pronoun in 'So We brought forth,' meaning: We brought forth kinds of plants, allowing for benefit from them, permitting you to eat some and to feed some.