17وَالمَلَكُ عَلىٰ أَرجائِها ۚ وَيَحمِلُ عَرشَ رَبِّكَ فَوقَهُم يَومَئِذٍ ثَمانِيَةٌMuhammad Asadand the angels [will appear] at its ends,1 and, above them, eight will bear aloft on that Day the throne of thy Sustainer's almightiness....2Or: "at its sides".Since God is infinite in space as well as in time, it is obvious that His "throne" (arsh) has a purely metaphorical connotation, circumscribing His absolute, unfathomable sway over all that exists or possibly could exist (cf. note 43 on 7:54). Hence, too, the "bearing aloft" of the throne of His almightiness cannot be anything but a metaphor - namely, an allusion to the full manifestation of that almightiness on the Day of Judgment. The Qur'an is silent as to who or what the "eight" are on whom this manifestation rests. Some of the earliest commentators assume that they are eight angels; others, that they are eight ranks of angels; while still others frankly admit that it is impossible to say whether "eight" or "eight thousand" are meant (Al-Hasan al-Basri, as quoted by Zamakhshari). Possibly, we have here an allusion to eight (unspecified) attributes of God or aspects of His creation; but, as the Qur'an states elsewhere, "none save God knows its final meaning" (see 3:7 and the corresponding note 8).