ﲨ ﲩ ﲪ ﲫ ﲬ ﲭ ﲮ ﲯ ﲰ ﲱ ﲲ ﲳ ﲴ ﲵ ﲶ ﲷ ﲸ ﲹ ﲺ ﲻ ﲼ ﲽ ﲾ ﲿ ﳀ ﳁ ﳂ ﳃ ﳄ
And [recall] when We took your covenant and raised over you the mount, [saying], "Take what We have given you with determination and listen." They said [instead], "We hear and disobey." And their hearts absorbed [the worship of] the calf because of their disbelief. Say, "How wretched is that which your faith enjoins upon you, if you should be believers."
Tafsir
Verse range: 2:92-93
"And you were wrongdoers" It is permissible for this to be a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl), meaning: you worshipped the calf while placing worship in a place other than its proper place. It is also permissible for it to be a parenthetical clause, meaning: you are a people whose habit is wrongdoing.
The raising of the Mount (al-ṭūr) is repeated because of the additional significance attached to it that was not present in the first instance, alongside the emphasis it provides.
"And listen" To what you have been commanded in the Torah.
"They said: We hear" Your words.
"And we disobey" Your command.
If you ask: How does their response correspond to His command? I say: It corresponds in that He said to them, "Listen," meaning: let your listening be a listening of acceptance and obedience. They replied, "We hear," but not the listening of obedience.
"And they were made to drink the calf into their hearts" Meaning: the love of it and the desire to worship it permeated them, just as dye permeates a garment.
His saying "into their hearts" clarifies the location of this "drinking," similar to His saying: "They only consume fire into their bellies" (An-Nisāʾ: 10).
"By their disbelief" Because of their disbelief.
"Evil is that which your faith commands you" Regarding the Torah, because there is no worship of calves in the Torah. Attributing the command to their "faith" is mockery, just as the people of Shuʿayb said: "Does your prayer command you?" (Hūd: 87). Likewise is the attribution of faith to them.
"If you are believers" This casts doubt upon their faith and impugns the validity of their claim to it.
