The Quran

137

وَأَورَثنَا القَومَ الَّذينَ كانوا يُستَضعَفونَ مَشارِقَ الأَرضِ وَمَغارِبَهَا الَّتي بارَكنا فيها ۖ وَتَمَّت كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ الحُسنىٰ عَلىٰ بَني إِسرائيلَ بِما صَبَروا ۖ وَدَمَّرنا ما كانَ يَصنَعُ فِرعَونُ وَقَومُهُ وَما كانوا يَعرِشونَ

Muhammad Asad

whereas unto the people who [in the past] had been deemed utterly low, We gave as their heritage the eastern and western parts of the land that We had blessed.¹ And [thus] thy Sustainer's good promise unto the children of Israel was fulfilled in result of their patience in adversity;² whereas We utterly destroyed all that Pharaoh and his people had wrought, and all that they had built.³

Palestine is spoken of as "blessed" because it was the land in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had lived, and because so many other prophets were to appear there.
The promise of God referred to here is the one given to the children of Israel through Moses (see verses 128 and 129).
The story of the suffering of the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt, their deliverance through Moses, their crossing of the Red Sea (or, more probably, of what today is known as the Gulf of Suez) and the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts is narrated in considerable detail in the Bible (Exodus i-xiv). The Qur'an, on the other hand, does not give us a consecutive narrative: for historical narrative as such is never its purpose. Whenever the Qur'an refers to past events whether recorded in the Bible or alive in Arabian tradition - it does so exclusively with a view to bringing out elements that are relevant to the ethical, teachings which it propounds.