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47
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ أوتُوا الكِتابَ آمِنوا بِما نَزَّلنا مُصَدِّقًا لِما مَعَكُم مِن قَبلِ أَن نَطمِسَ وُجوهًا فَنَرُدَّها عَلىٰ أَدبارِها أَو نَلعَنَهُم كَما لَعَنّا أَصحابَ السَّبتِ ۚ وَكانَ أَمرُ اللَّهِ مَفعولًا

Muhammad Asad

O you who have been granted revelation [aforetime]! Believe in what We have [now] bestowed from on high in confirmation of whatever [of the truth] you already possess, lest We efface your hopes and bring them to an end1 - just as We rejected those people who broke the Sabbath: for God's will is always done.2
  • Lit., "lest We obliterate the faces"- i.e., that towards which one turns, or that which one faces, with expectation ('Abduh in Manar V, 144 ff.) - "and bring them back to their ends". It is to be noted that the term dubur (of which adbar is the plural) does not always signify the "back" of a thing - as most of the translators assume - but often stands for its "last part" or "end" (cf. Lane III, 846).
  • This is an allusion to the story of the Sabbath-breakers (lit., "the people of the Sabbath") referred to in 2:65 and fully explained in 7:163-166.