25 Preface فَلَمّا جاءَهُم بِالحَقِّ مِن عِندِنا قالُوا اقتُلوا أَبناءَ الَّذينَ آمَنوا مَعَهُ وَاستَحيوا نِساءَهُم ۚ وَما كَيدُ الكافِرينَ إِلّا في ضَلالٍYusuf AliNow, when he came to them1 in Truth, from Us, they said, “Slay the sons of those who believe2 with him, and keep alive their females,” but the plots of Unbelievers (end) in nothing but errors (and delusions)!...Verse 24 described the opposition of three types of Unfaith, which opposed Faith, in different ways, as described in the last note. Qarun, in his overweening insolence, may well have called Moses and Aaron “sorcerers telling lies” in the Sinai desert, as he despised priests and men of God, and might cast the Egyptian reproach in their teeth as a reminiscence. Here, in verse 25, we have an episode about the time of the birth of Moses: “them” and “they” refer to Pharaoh and his Court; the “coming” of Moses here refers to the time of his birth. On that construction, “with him”, lower down in their speech would be elliptical, referring to “slay the sons”, as if they had said, “Kill all Israelite male children: the unknown Prophet to be born would be amongst them: so kill them all with him.” In verse 26 we again skip some years and recall an episode when Moses, having got his mission, stood in Pharaoh’s Court, and some of the Egyptian Commonalty were almost ready to believe in him.That is, the Israelites, for they were the custodians of God’s Faith then. For the slaughter of Israelite children by Pharaoh, see 27:4-6, and notes.