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Sura 20
Aya 39
39
أَنِ اقذِفيهِ فِي التّابوتِ فَاقذِفيهِ فِي اليَمِّ فَليُلقِهِ اليَمُّ بِالسّاحِلِ يَأخُذهُ عَدُوٌّ لي وَعَدُوٌّ لَهُ ۚ وَأَلقَيتُ عَلَيكَ مَحَبَّةً مِنّي وَلِتُصنَعَ عَلىٰ عَيني

Muhammad Asad

'Place him in a chest and throw it into the river, and thereupon the river will cast him ashore, [and] one who is an enemy unto Me and an enemy unto him will adopt him."1 "And [thus early] I spread Mine Own love over thee - and [this] in order that thou might be formed under Mine eye.2
  • Lit., "take him" (cf. 28:9). Pharaoh is described as an enemy of God because of his overweening arrogance and cruelty as well as his claim to the status of divinity (see 79:24); and he was, unknowingly, an enemy of the infant Moses inasmuch as he hated and feared the people to whom the latter belonged.
  • I.e., "under My protection and in accordance with the destiny which I have decreed for thee": possibly a reference to Moses' upbringing within the cultural environment of the royal palace and his subsequent acquisition of the ancient wisdom of Egypt - circumstances which were to qualify him for his future leadership and the special mission that God had in view for him.