"And it listened to its Lord, and it was rightfully bound [to do so]."

"And it listened to its Lord": That is, it hearkened unto Him, the Exalted. It is said, "He listened" (adhina) when one hears. The poet said: Deaf when they hear good, they mention it; But if evil is mentioned in their presence, they listen. And Qa‘nab said: If they hear of a matter of enmity, they fly with joy, But if they hear of a righteous matter, they are buried. The "listening" here is a metaphor for submission and obedience; meaning, it submitted to the influence of His power, the Mighty and Majestic, when His will, the Glorified, attached to its splitting—like the submission of an obedient servant to the command of a master who is to be obeyed. The mention of the title of "Lordship" (Rububiyyah) along with the possessive pronoun (its Lord) is to indicate the cause of the ruling. This sentence and its counterpart following it are, as some have said, equivalent to the saying of the Exalted, "We have come willingly." This is to convey that what is attributed to the heaven and the earth—such as splitting, expansion, and others—is occurring in accordance with the demands of wisdom, as they have established.

"And it was rightfully bound": That is, it was made rightfully deserving of listening and submission. This is not to say it was not so before, but rather in its essence and self. This comes from the expression, "He is deserving (mahuqun) of such-and-such," and "worthy (haqiq) of it." The encompassing meaning is: It submitted to its Lord while being worthy and deserving of submission, because no matter can resist the Lordly power; it is not due to any specific trait it possesses among the possible beings. Some have mentioned that the original meaning of the speech is "God’s right upon it regarding that," meaning He decreed upon it the necessity of submission in the sense of a will that He, the Glorified, intended for it—a will that has no revocation. It is also said that the meaning is: "It was fitting for it to split" due to the intensity of the terror. The sentence, according to what some of the eminent scholars have chosen, is an intercalary clause (i‘tirad) that confirms what preceded it, though it is also said to be conjunctive to it, but that is not as strong.