al-Baqara 2:187 — "They are a garment for you"

The best-known comparison the Qurʾān uses for spouses. And the word libās had occurred earlier in this commentary: at verse 42, talbīs — dressing falsehood in the garment of truth. The same root, here in the positive direction.

Look at what a garment does; the whole force of the comparison is there:

• It covers — it does not show the fault outside
• It protects — from heat, from cold, from what is outside
• It is nearest — the first layer touching the body, with nothing in between
• It adorns — it completes the appearance
• And it takes the shape of the wearer — it is not a ready-made mould

And the comparison is reciprocal: the same sentence is said twice, with its direction reversed. Each side is both the wearer and the worn. No superiority or precedence is set up in the grammar of the sentence.

تِلْكَ حُدُودُ ٱللَّهِ فَلَا تَقْرَبُوهَا — "these are God's bounds, so do not approach them". The pattern we saw at verse 35: the prohibition begins not with the act itself but with the distance leading to it. A person cannot stand firmly right at the edge of a boundary.