“if we are the victors.” The reciters of the Hijaz and Hafs recited, “Indeed, we shall have a reward,” as a declarative statement, while the rest recited it as a question. They were unanimous that in Surat al-Shuʿaraʾ it is interrogative.

Pharaoh said, “Yes, and you will surely be among those brought near”—that is, in a high rank with me, in addition to the reward. Al-Kalbi said: This means that they would be the first to enter and the last to leave.

The magicians said, “O Moses, either you throw”—meaning, your staff—“or we shall be the ones to throw,” meaning, our staffs and ropes.

Moses said, “Rather, you throw.” When they threw, they bewitched the people’s eyes—that is, they diverted their eyes from perceiving the true nature of the deception and illusion they had produced; and this is magic. They struck them with terror and brought forth a mighty magic. They threw down thick ropes and long pieces of wood, and suddenly they appeared as snakes like mountains, filling the valley and climbing over one another. It is related that an area a mile by a mile appeared, in the people’s eyes, to have become snakes and vipers.

And We inspired Moses, “Throw down your staff.” So he threw it down, and it became an enormous snake until it filled the horizon. Ibn Zayd said: Their gathering took place in Alexandria. It is also said that the snake’s tail extended from beyond al-Buhayrah, and that it opened its mouth to a width of eighty cubits.

“Then at once it swallowed up”: Hafs recited this with an unvocalized lam and a single qaf, wherever it occurs; the other reciters read it with an open lam and a doubled qaf, meaning: it devoured. “What they had fabricated”: that is, the false illusions they had devised; it was also said: what they had falsified before the people. It began swallowing their ropes and staffs one by one, until it had swallowed them all. Then it advanced toward the people who were present, and they were thrown into a stampede in which twenty-five thousand of them perished. Moses then took hold of it, and it returned to being a staff as it had been.

“So the truth prevailed, and what they had been doing was rendered void. (118) Thus they were defeated there and returned humiliated. (119) And the magicians fell down in prostration. (120)”