وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا مُوسَىٰ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا وَسُلْطَٰنٍ مُّبِينٍ · إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَلَإِي۟هِۦ فَٱتَّبَعُوٓا۟ أَمْرَ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَآ أَمْرُ فِرْعَوْنَ بِرَشِيدٍ
"And We sent Moses with Our signs and a clear warrant to Pharaoh and his leading men. They followed Pharaoh's command; and Pharaoh's command did not lead to what is right."
Five of the sūra's narratives were told at length; the sixth fits into four verses. I record this as an observation about the structure: the text leaves the Moses narrative to other sūras and takes only one point here: whom the people followed.
fa'ttabaʿū amra Firʿawn — and immediately the verdict: wa mā amru Firʿawna bi-rashīd. The verse, that is, weighs not the followers but the one followed.
The root ر-ش-د: to find the right way, maturity. And the word has already occurred twice in this sūra:
| Place | About whom |
|---|---|
| 11/78 | a-laysa minkum rajulun rashīd — Lot's question |
| 11/87 | innaka la-anta'l-ḥalīmu'l-rashīd — said to Shuʿayb in mockery |
| 11/97 | wa mā amru Firʿawna bi-rashīd — a verdict |
Three uses stand in the same sūra, and in all three the word is the object of a search or of a claim. In the third it is negated outright.
The root ق-د-م: to go in front, to lead the way. The one who goes in front in this world goes in front in the hereafter too — but the place he arrives at changes.
The root و-ر-د: to come to water, to go down to the watering place. Wird — the place one goes to drink; the point at which a caravan comes down to water.
I record this as an observation about the language: the word describes the most looked-for moment of life in the desert — the man who leads the caravan to water. The verse sets up the same scene and makes the place arrived at the Fire: fa-awradahumu'l-nār. And it goes on: biʾsa'l-wirdu'l-mawrūd — "an evil arrival, that place arrived at".
The same root was treated at Maryam 19/86 (wa nasūqu'l-mujrimīna ilā jahannama wirdā); I rely on that treatment.
وَأُتْبِعُوا۟ فِى هَٰذِهِۦ لَعْنَةً وَيَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ بِئْسَ ٱلرِّفْدُ ٱلْمَرْفُودُ (99) — and the same pattern is built a second time:
Rifd (ر-ف-د): help, a gift, support. The two sentences are in the same pattern — a noun plus a passive participle — and both put a positive word in a negative place. This is a matching of sound and structure that can be verified from the text.