16أَأَمِنتُم مَن فِي السَّماءِ أَن يَخسِفَ بِكُمُ الأَرضَ فَإِذا هِيَ تَمورُMuhammad AsadCan you ever feel secure that He who is in heaven1 will not cause the earth to swallow you up when, lo and behold, it begins to quake?This expression is, of course, purely metaphorical since God is limitless in space as well as in time. Its use here is apparently meant to stress the unfathomable quality of His existence and power, which penetrates, and reveals itself in, every aspect of His cosmic creativeness, symbolized in the term "heaven".