Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 122 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:122

يَـٰبَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ ٱذْكُرُوا۟ نِعْمَتِىَ ٱلَّتِىٓ أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَأَنِّى فَضَّلْتُكُمْ عَلَى ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ

“O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The long address to the Children of Israel closes as it opened: remember My favour, and how I preferred you, and answer it now.

A reflection

The same words at both doors

A grandmother sees her grandson off at the start of his first term away. At the station she says one thing. 'Remember who you belong to,' she tells him. Three years later, at his graduation, after a hundred phone calls about everything else, she hugs him and says the same words. He realises they were the point all along.

This ayah repeats, word for word, an ayah from much earlier in the surah (2:47). A very similar call opened the whole address to the Children of Israel (2:40). In between lie more than eighty ayat: the rescue from Pharaoh, the calf, the cow, the broken covenants, the claims and counter-claims. Now the same words return.

A later commentator explains the purpose. The repetition is for the utmost sincerity of counsel. It also signals that this is the summing-up of the whole story and the point it was making. A major commentator adds that it is repeated for emphasis, urging them to follow the Prophet ﷺ whose description they found in their own books.

The Quran often teaches this way. A long passage is framed by the same words at its opening and its close, like two doors of one house. Whatever happens inside is meant to be read in their light. Everything between 2:40 and 2:122 is, in the end, about remembering favour and answering it.

When a reader reaches this ayah and feels 'I have read this before', that is the moment to stop. The repetition is not filler. It is the teacher returning to the one sentence that matters most.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.