وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى سَخَّرَ ٱلْبَحْرَ لِتَأْكُلُوا۟ مِنْهُ لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا وَتَسْتَخْرِجُوا۟ مِنْهُ حِلْيَةً تَلْبَسُونَهَا وَتَرَى ٱلْفُلْكَ مَوَاخِرَ فِيهِ وَلِتَبْتَغُوا۟ مِن فَضْلِهِۦ وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
Wa huwa'lladhī sakhkhara'l-baḥra li-taʾkulū minhu laḥman ṭariyyan wa tastakhrijū minhu ḥilyatan talbasūnahā, wa tara'l-fulka mawākhira fīhi wa li-tabtaghū min faḍlihī wa laʿallakum tashkurūn
"And it is He who made the sea subservient to you: that you might eat fresh meat from it and bring out of it ornaments to wear. And you see the ships cleaving through it — that you might seek of His bounty, and that you might give thanks."
The first half of this sentence occurred at Fāṭir, 35/12, in almost the same words: wa min kullin taʾkulūna laḥman ṭariyyan wa tastakhrijūna ḥilyatan talbasūnahā. I rely on that treatment.
And what was recorded in the Fāṭir section can be carried over here: the two seas are not equal, yet benefit is drawn from both — the verse named the shared benefit after stating the inequality.
| Fāṭir 35/12 | al-Naḥl 16/14 | |
|---|---|---|
| The work of the sentence | Comparison — wa mā yastawi'l-baḥrān | Enumeration — an item on the list of favours |
| Number of seas | Two — sweet and salt | One — al-baḥr, generic |
| What is added | Wa tara'l-fulka fīhi mawākhir | The word mawākhir is peculiar to al-Naḥl |
The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: to cleave the water, to go forward cleaving, and to make a sound in doing so. Makhr — the ship's cleaving of the water; mākhira — that which cleaves.
The picture in the word is worth recording: the verse does not name the ship as "floating" or as "going". It names it as cleaving.
And I give this as an observation: in the seventh verse it was said that man travels by splitting his own self (bi-shiqqi'l-anfus). Here the ship that cleaves the sea is named. What the two verses have in common is the idea of cleaving; but the one takes place in the man himself, the other in the water. I record this not as a claim of kinship between roots — the roots differ (ش-ق-ق and م-خ-ر) — but as a likeness of picture.
| Purpose | Expression | Form |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Li-taʾkulū laḥman ṭariyyā | Lām + verb |
| 2 | Wa tastakhrijū ḥilyatan | Attached to the preceding |
| 3 | Wa li-tabtaghū min faḍlih | Lām + verb — repeated |
| 4 | Wa laʿallakum tashkurūn | Laʿalla — the particle of hope, of purpose |
Worth recording: in the third purpose the lām is repeated. The lexicographers record that this repetition serves to re-establish the connection after the sentence that comes between (wa tara'l-fulka mawākhira fīh).
And the form of the last purpose changes: laʿalla. This sets the fourth item apart from the rest — the first three are outcomes, the fourth the return that is looked for.
The same distinction was treated at al-Rūm, 30/46: the last link of the wa min āyātihī series ended with wa laʿallakum tashkurūn, and it was recorded there — the series is built out of verbs of understanding, and the link that stands apart ends with a verb of response. I rely on that treatment and record that the same structure is found here within a single verse.