Nor can it mean “what I Myself created,” for when they intend this meaning, they ascribe the action to the hand, thereby associating the hand with the action, as in His words:
“For what your two hands have sent forth,”
and:
“For what your hands have sent forth.”
This also includes His words:
“Livestock, among the things Our Hands have made.”
But when He ascribes the action to the agent and connects the verb to the hand through the preposition bi (“with”), as in His words:
“What I created with My two Hands,”
this explicitly states that He performed the action with His two Hands. Thus, one cannot say to someone who has spoken or walked, “You did this with your two hands,” although one may say, “Your two hands did this.” Simply saying “You did it” suffices to attribute the action to its agent. If an actual action performed with the hand were not intended, the additional wording would be entirely superfluous and serve no purpose.
In the speech of Arabs or non-Arabs, you will not find—if Allah Most High wills—an eloquent speaker saying, “I did this with my two hands,” or “So-and-so did this with his two hands,” unless he actually did it with his two hands. It cannot mean that he has no hand, or that he has a hand but the action was performed without it. This established distinction makes clear where expressions are figurative and where they are literal. It also makes clear that, on purely linguistic grounds, these verses admit no figurative interpretation whatsoever.
He said to me: “But they have used the dual in place of the singular in His words, ‘Cast him into Hell, you two,’ although the address is only to one.”
I said to him: This is not conceded. Rather, concerning His words, “Cast, you two,” it has been said that the agent takes the dual form because the action is repeated twice, the meaning being: “Cast! Cast!” It has also been said that the address is to the driver and the witness. Whoever says that it addresses one person says that a person has two companions with him: one on his right and the other on his left