Tafsir Ibn Abbas: Al-Baqara, Ayah 30

And mention O Muhammad (s) when your Lord said to the angels ‘I am appointing on earth a vicegerent’ who shall act as My deputy by implementing My rulings therein — and this vicegerent was Adam; They said ‘What will You appoint therein one who will do corruption therein through disobedience and shed blood spilling it through killing just as the progeny of the jinn did for they used to inhabit it but when they became corrupted God sent down the angels against them and they were driven away to islands and into the mountains; while we glorify continuously You with praise that is “We say Glory and Praise be to You” and sanctify You?’ that is ‘We exalt You as transcendent above what does not befit You?; the lām of laka ‘You’ is extra and the sentence wa-nuqaddisu laka ‘We sanctify You’ is a circumstantial qualifier the import being ‘thus we are more entitled to be Your vicegerents’; He exalted be He said ‘Assuredly I know what you know not’ of the benefits of making Adam a vicegerent and of the fact that among his progeny will be the obedient and the transgressor and justice will prevail between them. They said ‘God will never create anything more noble in His eyes than us nor more knowledgeable since we have been created before it and have seen what it has not seen. God then created Adam from the surface of the earth adīm al-ard adīm literally means ‘skin’ taking a handful of all its colours and mixing it with different waters then made him upright and breathed into him the Spirit and he thus became a living being with senses after having been inanimate.