“Take” means: We said to them, “Take what We have given you”—that is, bestowed upon you—“with resolve,” meaning earnestly, diligently, and steadfastly. “And remember,” that is, study, “what it contains.” It was also said: Memorize it and act upon it. “So that you may become God-fearing,” that you may escape destruction in this world and punishment in the Hereafter. That is: If you accept it; otherwise, I shall crush you with this mountain, drown you in this sea, and burn you with this fire. When they saw that there was no escape from these things, they accepted and prostrated, watching the mountain while in prostration. This became a practice among the Jews: they prostrate only upon one side of their faces, saying, “By this prostration, the punishment was lifted from us.”
“Then you turned away,” meaning, you turned aside, “after that”—after you had accepted the Torah. “Had it not been for Allah’s favour and mercy upon you,” namely, His granting you respite, leading you on gradually, and deferring punishment from you, “you would have become among the losers”—that is, those deprived through punishment and the loss of this world and the Hereafter. It was also said: among those punished immediately, for He showed them mercy by granting them respite.
“And you certainly knew those among you who transgressed on the Sabbath; so We said to them, ‘Be apes, despised!’ (65) Thus We made it a deterrent punishment for those who witnessed it and those who came after it, and an admonition for the God-fearing. (66) And when Moses said to his people, ‘Indeed, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow,’ they said, ‘Are you making a mockery of us?’ He said, ‘I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant.’ (67)”
The statement of the Most High, “And you certainly knew those among you who transgressed on the Sabbath,” means: they exceeded the bounds. The root meaning of Sabbath is cessation. It was said that Saturday was given this name because Allah Most High ceased creating on it. It was also said that it was because the Jews were commanded to cease work on that day.
Their story is that, in the time of David, peace be upon him, they lived in a land called Aylah. Allah prohibited them from fishing on the Sabbath. Whenever the Sabbath came, every fish in the sea would gather there, raising their snouts out of the water because they felt secure, until the water could not be seen because of their great number. Once the Sabbath had passed, they would plunge down and remain in the depths of the sea, so that none of them could be seen. This is the meaning of the statement of the Most High: “When their fish came to them openly on their Sabbath, but on days other than the Sabbath they did not come to them” (163—al-A‘raf).
Then Satan whispered to them, saying: “You have only been forbidden from taking them on the Sabbath.” So some men dug basins around the sea and made channels from it into them. On Friday evening, they opened those channels, and the waves carried the fish into the basins. The fish were unable to get out because of their depth and the scantiness of their water. Then, when Sunday came, they took them. It was also said that they would drive the fish into the basins on the Sabbath without taking them, and then take them on Sunday. It was also said that they would set