(40–43) “O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I bestowed upon you. Fulfill your covenant with Me, and I will fulfill My covenant with you; and hold Me alone in awe. Believe in what I have sent down, confirming what is with you, and do not be the first to disbelieve in it. Do not exchange My signs for a paltry price, and fear Me alone. Do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know. Establish prayer, give zakat, and bow with those who bow.”
By “O Children of Israel,” Israel means Jacob, peace be upon him. These words address the groups of the Children of Israel who lived in Medina and its surroundings, while also encompassing those who came after them. Allah therefore gave them a general command, saying: “Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you.” This includes all His favors, some of which He will mention in this surah. Remembering them means acknowledging them in the heart, praising Allah for them with the tongue, and employing them through one’s limbs in ways that He loves and approves.
“Fulfill your covenant with Me”—namely, what He enjoined upon them: to believe in Him and His messengers and to uphold His law.
“And I will fulfill My covenant with you”—namely, by rewarding them for doing so.
What is meant is what Allah mentioned in His words: “Allah certainly took a covenant from the Children of Israel, and We appointed twelve leaders from among them. Allah said, ‘I am with you. If you establish prayer [and give zakat and believe in My messengers]’” through His words: “he has indeed strayed from the straight way.”
He then commanded them to adopt what would lead them to fulfill His covenant: awe of Him, the Exalted, and fear of Him alone. Whoever fears Him is compelled by that fear to obey His commands and avoid His prohibitions.
He then gave them the particular command without which their faith could neither be complete nor valid, saying: “Believe in what I have sent down.” This is the Quran, which He sent down to His servant and Messenger Muhammad ﷺ. He commanded them to believe in it and follow it, which necessarily entails believing in the one to whom it was revealed. He then mentioned what should induce them to believe in it, saying: “confirming what is with you”; that is, it agrees with what they possess and neither differs from nor contradicts it. Since it agrees with the Scriptures you possess and does not contradict them, nothing should prevent you from believing in it, for it brought the same message as the messengers before it. As people of Scripture and knowledge, you should therefore be the foremost to believe in and affirm it.
Moreover, His words, “confirming what is with you,” indicate that if you do not believe in it, your rejection will amount to denying what you yourselves possess. This is because the message it brought is the same as that brought by Moses, Jesus, and the other prophets. Thus, denying it is a denial of what you possess.
Furthermore, the Scriptures in your hands contain a description of the Prophet who brought this Quran and the glad tidings of his coming. If you do not believe in him, you will have denied part of what was revealed to you; and whoever denies ⦗51⦘ part of what was revealed to him has denied all of it, just as whoever disbelieves in one messenger has denied all the messengers.
Having commanded them to believe in him, Allah prohibited and warned them against its opposite—disbelief in him—saying: “Do not be the first to disbelieve in it”; that is, in the Messenger and the Quran.
The words “the first to disbelieve in it” are more emphatic than merely saying, “Do not disbelieve in it.” If they were the first to disbelieve, they would be hastening toward disbelief—the very opposite of what should be expected of them—and they would bear both their own sin and the sin of those who followed their example afterward.
He then mentioned what prevented them from believing: their preference for paltry worldly gain over everlasting happiness. He said: “Do not exchange My signs for a paltry price.” This refers to the positions and material benefits they enjoyed and imagined would be cut off if they believed in Allah and His Messenger. They exchanged Allah’s signs for these things, loving and preferring them instead.
“And Me alone”—not anyone else—“you must fear.” If you fear Allah alone, your fear of Him will require you to give precedence to belief in His signs over that paltry price. Conversely, choosing the paltry price shows that fear of Allah has departed from your hearts.
He then said: “Do not mix”—that is, confuse—“the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth.” He thus prohibited them from two things: mixing truth with falsehood and concealing the truth. What is required of the people of Scripture and knowledge is that they distinguish and proclaim the truth so that those seeking guidance may be guided, those who have gone astray may return, and the proof may be established against the obstinate. Allah has explained His signs and made His clear proofs manifest so that truth may be distinguished from falsehood and the path of the rightly guided may be clearly differentiated from the path of the evildoers. Any scholar who acts accordingly is among the successors of the messengers and the guides of nations.
But anyone who mixes truth with falsehood and fails to distinguish one from the other despite knowing the difference—and who conceals the truth he knows, though commanded to proclaim it—is among those who call people to Hell. People follow none but their scholars in matters of religion, so choose for yourselves one of these two paths.
He then said: “Establish prayer,” both outwardly and inwardly; “give zakat” to those entitled to receive it; “and bow with those who bow,” meaning: pray with those who pray. If you do so while believing in Allah’s messengers and signs, you will have combined outward and inward deeds, sincerity toward the One worshipped and kindness toward His servants, and acts of worship performed by the heart, body, and wealth.
His words, “Bow with those who bow,” mean: pray with those who pray. This contains a command to perform prayer in congregation and establishes its obligatory nature. It also shows that bowing is an essential pillar of prayer, for prayer is expressed here by reference to bowing, and referring to an act of worship by one of its constituent parts indicates that this part is obligatory within it.