• yubdi: from bada—yabdu, badwan and buduwwan—meaning “to appear, to become evident.”
• safḥatuhu: literally safḥah is the side of the face; every face has two safḥahs, the two cheeks. Here it means “he brought his sin into the open and made it plain.”
• Kitāb Allāh: its plural is kutub (with ḍamma on the kāf and sukūn on the tāʾ). The verbal noun came to be used for the written text because it gathers together Allah’s rulings. In this context it means “Allah’s ruling that does not contradict revelation.”

What is learned from the ḥadīth:
1 – The ḥadīth shows that the Wise Lawgiver desires the sinner to keep himself concealed and repent privately between him and his Lord, for Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful: “It is He who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons misdeeds” (Al-Shūrā 42:25).
2 – The Prophet ﷺ would turn away from those who openly confessed their sins to him, as in the story of Māʿiz ibn Mālik; he wanted their repentance to remain between them and their Lord and would say, “Perhaps you only kissed? Perhaps you merely touched? Perhaps you just looked?”
3 – If, however, the case of someone who has committed an indecency is referred to the ruler and the facts are laid bare, the ruler is then obliged to carry out the prescribed penalty, as the Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever exposes his crime to us, we shall enforce against him the Book of Allah.” He likewise said to Ṣafwān ibn Umayya when the latter interceded for the thief who had stolen his cloak, “Could you not have done that before you brought him to me?” And he rebuked Usāma ibn Zayd, saying, “Are you interceding concerning one of the punishments ordained by Allah?”
4 – Regarding the ḥadīth, “Overlook the slips of those who are dignified,” Imām al-Shāfiʿī said: I heard someone explain this ḥadīth to mean that a man of standing may be excused for his slip so long as it does not involve a ḥadd-crime. Al-Māwardī, commenting on the word “slips,” mentioned two possible meanings: the first is minor sins.