Taha · Makki · ayah 39 of 135

Taha 20:39

أَنِ ٱقْذِفِيهِ فِى ٱلتَّابُوتِ فَٱقْذِفِيهِ فِى ٱلْيَمِّ فَلْيُلْقِهِ ٱلْيَمُّ بِٱلسَّاحِلِ يَأْخُذْهُ عَدُوٌّ لِّى وَعَدُوٌّ لَّهُۥ ۚ وَأَلْقَيْتُ عَلَيْكَ مَحَبَّةً مِّنِّى وَلِتُصْنَعَ عَلَىٰ عَيْنِىٓ

“[Saying], 'Cast him into the chest and cast it into the river, and the river will throw it onto the bank; there will take him an enemy to Me and an enemy to him.' And I bestowed upon you love from Me[835] that you would be brought up under My eye [i.e., observation and care].”

Saheeh International

Essence

A river is told where to set a chest down, and a baby is raised in his enemy's house under the eye of his Lord.

A reflection

The river that belonged to Him

A property developer launches a new riverside tower. The brochure says it all: own the river. Every flat has the view. The water is sold as if it came with the deeds.

Pharaoh made a grander version of that claim. Elsewhere the Quran records his boast to his people: is not the kingdom of Egypt mine, and these rivers flowing beneath me? (43:51). The Nile was the heart of his power. It watered his fields, carried his ships and decorated his palace gardens.

Now listen to this ayah. Put him in the chest, and put the chest in the river. Fa-l-yulqihi al-yammu bi-s-sāḥil: then let the river cast him onto the bank. The grammar is a command, addressed to the river. The commentators stop on it. Allah's will made it certain that the current would carry the chest to the shore. So, they say, the river is spoken of as if it could hear and obey. It is given an order, and it carries it out.

The lexicons add a picture. The sāḥil, the bank, is named from scraping: it is the ground the water files away. The river would wear its way to exactly the spot appointed.

So the river Pharaoh boasted of was never his. It took instructions from its Lord. And the instruction was to deliver the one child Pharaoh most feared straight into Pharaoh's own house.

That is how majesty humbles the ego. Whatever we think flows beneath us, our salary, our influence, our health, our plans, is under another command. It can be told, at any moment, to carry something we never expected to our door.

Does Allah need us to admire this? No. He is free of all need (35:15). The ayah is told for Musa's sake, and ours: to loosen our grip on what was never ours to own.

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.