Tafsir Ibn Abbas: Al-Baqara, Ayah 49
Common Words
Other Scholars on This Ayah
Tafsir
And remember when We delivered you your forefathers the address here and henceforth directed to those living at the time of the our Prophet is about how God blessed their forefathers and is intended to remind them of God’s grace so that they might believe; from the folk of Pharaoh who were visiting you with that is making you taste evil chastisement of the worst kind the sentence here is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the person of the pronoun suffixed in najjaynākum ‘We delivered you’; slaughtering your newly-born sons this is explaining what has just been said; and sparing retaining your women doing so because of the saying of some of their priests that a child born among the Israelites shall bring about the end of your rule Pharaoh; and for you therein chastisement or deliverance was a tremendous trial a test or a grace from your Lord.
Ibn Abbas Commentary
(And (remember) when We did deliver you from Pharaoh's folk), from Pharaoh and his people, (who were afflicting you with dreadful torment), and here Allah mentions the torment He sent on them: (slaying your sons) in their tender years (and sparing), using (your women) who were of age: (That was a tremendous trial from your Lord), a tremendous calamity from your Lord; and it is also said this means: a tremendous blessing.