8وَأَنّا لَمَسنَا السَّماءَ فَوَجَدناها مُلِئَت حَرَسًا شَديدًا وَشُهُبًاMuhammad Asad"'And [so it happened] that we reached out towards heaven:1 but we found it filled with mighty guards and flames,2The above may be understood as alluding not only, metaphorically, to the arrogant Jewish belief in their being "God's chosen people", but also, more factually, to their old inclination to, and practice of, astrology as a means to foretell the future. Apart from this - and in a more general sense - their "reaching out towards heaven" may be a metaphorical description of a state of mind which causes man to regard himself as "self-sufficient" and to delude himself into thinking that he is bound to achieve mastery over his own fate.See notes 16 and 17 on 15:17-18.