The Quran

160

فَبِظُلمٍ مِنَ الَّذينَ هادوا حَرَّمنا عَلَيهِم طَيِّباتٍ أُحِلَّت لَهُم وَبِصَدِّهِم عَن سَبيلِ اللَّهِ كَثيرًا

Muhammad Asad

So, then, for the wickedness committed by those who followed the Jewish faith did We deny unto them certain of the good things of life which [aforetime] had been allowed to them;¹ and [We did this] for their having so often turned away from the path of God,²

Most of the commentators assume that this refers to the severe dietary restrictions imposed on the Jews, which are alluded to in 3:93 and 6:146. Since, however, 3:93 clearly states that these restrictions and prohibitions were a punishment for evil deeds committed "before the Torah was bestowed from on high", while the verse which we are now discussing relates to their sinful behaviour in later times, we must conclude that the punishment spoken of here has another meaning: namely, the age-long deprivation of the Jewish people of the many "good things of life" which other nations enjoy - in other words, the humiliation and suffering which they have had to undergo throughout most of their recorded history, and particularly after the time of Jesus. It is on the basis of this interpretation that I have rendered the expression harramna alayhim (lit., "We forbade them") as "We denied to them".
The verb sadda ("he turned away") can be transitive as well as intransitive, and the same applies to the noun sadd derived from it. In the former case, the sentence would read, "for their having turned away many (others) from the path of God"; in the latter case, "for their having (so) often turned away from the path of God". In view of the repeated stress, in the Qur'an, on the refractory nature of the children of Israel - and the abundant evidence to this effect in the Old Testament - I prefer the intransitive rendering.