Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 123 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:123

وَٱتَّقُوا۟ يَوْمًا لَّا تَجْزِى نَفْسٌ عَن نَّفْسٍ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا يُقْبَلُ مِنْهَا عَدْلٌ وَلَا تَنفَعُهَا شَفَـٰعَةٌ وَلَا هُمْ يُنصَرُونَ

“And fear a Day when no soul will suffice for another soul[40] at all, and no compensation will be accepted from it, nor will any intercession benefit it, nor will they be aided.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The warning of 2:48 returns rearranged: on that Day no ransom is accepted, no intercession helps, and no one stands in for another.

A reflection

The same warning, rearranged

A careful editor compares two drafts of the same letter. At first they look identical. Then she notices that two sentences have swapped places, and two verbs have changed. She circles them. In a good writer, she knows, nothing moves by accident.

This ayah repeats a warning from early in the surah (2:48), almost word for word. But not quite. There, intercession came first: 'no intercession will be accepted from it', and then 'no ransom will be taken'. Here the order is reversed. Ransom comes first: 'no ransom will be accepted'. Then intercession: 'no intercession will benefit it'.

A later commentator notices the change and offers an explanation, as others had suggested before him. To be accepted comes first; to be of benefit follows from acceptance. In the first ayah, intercession is denied at the root: it is not accepted at all. In this one, it is denied at the fruit: it does not benefit. He adds that what comes first in reality is given first place in the words.

Read together, the two ayat close every door twice. Intercession is neither accepted nor of benefit. Ransom is neither taken nor accepted. There is no stage at which a way out appears. This is not a denial of the intercession the Quran affirms elsewhere, which comes only by Allah's leave (21:28). It closes the door that people try to open without it.

The same commentator gives the purpose of the repetition. It is the utmost sincerity of counsel, and a sign that this is the summing-up of the long story. The first warning came near its beginning. This one comes at its end, so that it is the last thing ringing in the hearer's ears.

Nothing in revelation moves by accident either. Two small changes make the warning complete.

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.