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Your sons and let your women-folk live;64 Therein was a tremendous trial from your Lord. 50. And remember We divided The Sea for you and saved you And drowned Pharaoh's people Within your very sight. 65 And remember We appointed Forty nights for Moses,66 And in his absence ye took The calf (for worship), And ye did grievous wrong. Even then We did forgive you,67 There was a chance for you To be grateful.
64. The bondage of Egypt was indeed a tremendous trial. Even the Egyptians' wish to spare the lives of Israel's females when the males were slaughtered, added to the bitterness of Israel. Their hatred was cruel. but their "love" was still more cruel. About the hard tasks, see Exod. i. 14: "They milde their lives biller with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner or service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour." Pharaoh's taskmasters gave no straw, yet ordered the Israelites to make bricks without straw: Exod. v. 5-19. Pharaoh's decree was: "Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive": Exod. i. 22. It was in consequence of this decree that Moses was hidden three months after he was born, and when he could be hidden no longer, he was put into an ark of bulrushes and cast into the Nile, where he was found by Pharaoh's daughter and wife (xxviii. 9), and adopted into the ramily: Exod. ii. 2-)0 Cf. xx. 37-40. Thus Moses was brought up by the enemies of his people. He was chosen by Allah to deliver his people, and Allah's wisdom made the learning and experience and even cruelties of the Egyptian enemies themselves to contribute to the sillviltion of his people. 65. When the Israelites at last escaped from Egypt, they were pursued by Pharaoh and his host. By a miracle the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, but the host of Pharaoh was drowned: Exod. xiv. 5-31. 66. This was after the Ten Commandments and the Laws and Ordinances had been given on Mount Sinai: Moses was asked up into the Mount, ilnd he was there forty days and forty nights: Exod. xxiv. 18. But the people got impatient of the delay, made a calf of melted gold, and offered worship and sacrifice to it: Exod. xxxii. 1-8. 67. Moses prayed for his people, and Allah forgave them. This is the language of the Qur-an. The Old Testament version is rougher: "The Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people": Exod. xxxii. 14. The Muslim position has always been that the Jewish (and Christian) scriptures as they stand cannot be traced direct to v
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