Al-A‘raf: (142) "And We made an appointment with Moses for thirty nights..."

(And We made an appointment with Moses for thirty nights) It is narrated that Moses (peace be upon him) promised the Children of Israel while they were in Egypt that if God destroyed their enemy, he would bring them a Book containing an explanation of what they should do and what they should leave. When Pharaoh perished, Moses (peace be upon him) asked his Lord for the Book, so He commanded him to fast for thirty days, which was the month of Dhu al-Qa‘dah. When he completed the thirty, he disliked the foul odor of his mouth, so he used a tooth-stick (siwak). The angels said, "We used to smell the scent of musk from your mouth, but you have spoiled it with the tooth-stick." Therefore, God Almighty commanded him to add ten days from Dhu al-Hijjah to it.

Al-Daylami reports from Ibn Abbas, attributing it to the Prophet (peace be upon him), that when Moses (peace be upon him) came to his Lord, the Exalted and Majestic, and intended to speak to Him after the thirty days—having fasted their nights and days—he disliked to speak to his Lord (Glory be to Him) while the scent of his mouth was that of a fasting person. So, he took some of the earth's vegetation and chewed it. His Lord said to him, though He is most knowing of what had occurred: "Why have you broken your fast?" He replied, "O Lord, I disliked to speak to You unless my mouth was pleasant-smelling." He said, "Do you not know, O Moses, that the scent of the fasting person's mouth is more pleasant to Me than the scent of musk? Return and fast for ten days, then come to me." Moses (peace be upon him) did what his Lord commanded him, and that is His (the Exalted) saying: (And We completed them with ten [more]). The expression of this using "nights" is because they are the beginnings (ghurar) of the months.

It is said: God Almighty commanded him (peace be upon him) to fast for thirty days and to work during them in ways that would draw him near to God Almighty; then the Torah was revealed to him, and He spoke to him during that time. The mention of the forty is summarized in Surat al-Baqarah and detailed here.

(And We made an appointment) means "We promised." Abu ‘Amr and Ya‘qub recited it this way. It is possible that the form remains in its literal sense, based on treating the acceptance of Moses (peace be upon him) as equivalent to a promise; its verification has already preceded. (Thirty), as Abu al-Baqa’ said, is a second object of wa‘adna (We made an appointment) with an omitted genitive, meaning "the completion of thirty nights" or "the attainment of them."

(So the term of his Lord was completed [as] forty nights) This is by way of summary of what preceded. It seems the point of this is that completing the thirty with ten could potentially bear the obvious meaning—adding ten to thirty to make forty—but it could also mean that the initial period was twenty and it was completed to thirty by ten, just as one says, "I completed the ten with two dirhams," meaning that were it not for the two dirhams, it would not have reached ten. Thus, to dispel the illusion of the second possibility, that phrase was brought. It is also said: the "completion with ten" is general and could be determined by God’s decree or by the will of Moses (peace be upon him), so the stated phrase was brought to clarify that the first meaning is intended. It is further said: it was brought as an indication that nothing occurred during those ten days that necessitated atonement (jabr).

Miqat means "time." Scholars differ between them, stating that "time" (waqt) is general, whereas miqat is a time for which an act of work is determined, such as the miqat of Hajj.

The accusative case of (forty): It is said to be a state (hal), meaning "reaching forty." Abu Hayyan rejected this, arguing that in this case, it would be an object of an omitted hal, not the hal itself. It was answered that grammarians apply the ruling of the operator (‘amil) to its complement (ma‘mul) standing in its place; thus, they say regarding "Zayd is in the house" that the prepositional phrase is the predicate, even though the predicate is actually that to which it is attached. This was countered by the claim that what the grammarians mentioned regarding the prepositional phrase is not the case for others. The best interpretation is that it is a hal with the estimation of "counted as forty." However, the claim of restricting that judgment to the prepositional phrase is contrary to fact, as is not hidden to the researcher, and what he claimed to be better than the preceding argument is subject to the same objections. It is also said: it is a specification (tamyiz). It is said: it is a direct object, with the word tamma (completed) implying the meaning of balagha (reached). It is said: tamma is one of the incomplete (naqis) verbs, and this is its predicate, but this is a strange assertion. It is said: it is in the accusative as an adverb of time (zarf). To this it was objected: how can "forty" be a temporal adverb for "completion," when completion occurs only at the very end? Unless it is used figuratively.

(And Moses said) when he turned toward the secret discourse, just as he was commanded, (to his brother Aaron), an Aramaic, Hebrew name that did not originate in the speech of the Arabs. It is written without an alif. Here it is in the genitive with a fatha on the nun, being an appositive to "his brother" or an explanation of it, or in the accusative as a direct object to an omitted verb, meaning "I mean Aaron." There is a rare reading with a damma, as the predicate of an omitted subject—"He is Aaron"—or as a vocative with an omitted vocative particle, meaning "O Aaron!"

(Succeed me in my people), meaning "be my successor." (And set things right) concerning what they do and what they leave. As for his (peace be upon him) appointing his brother as successor even though he was a messenger-prophet like him, it is said that leadership belonged to him, not the other, and the combination of leadership with messengership and prophethood is not a necessary matter, as the stories of the prophets of the Children of Israel indicate. The Greatest Shaykh (may his secret be sanctified) mentioned in his Futuhat that it was stated of Aaron that he was a prophet by essence and a messenger by way of following. Perhaps this succession is a consequence of that following. It is also said that this is like one of those tasked with an interest saying to another when they wish to leave for a task: "Be my substitute," meaning "exert your utmost effort and capacity so that your action equals the action of two people."

(And do not follow the way of the corrupters), meaning: do not follow the path of those who adopt corruption, whether by invitation or otherwise. This is a matter of emphasis, as is not hidden.