ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَٰهُ نُطْفَةً فِى قَرَارٍ مَّكِينٍ
Root ن-ط-ف: the core sense the lexicographers give is to drip, to trickle. Naṭafa'l-māʾ — the water dripped; nuṭfa — a small quantity of water, a drop. The word was treated at al-Qiyāma 75/37 (a-lam yaku nuṭfatan min maniyyin yumnā), at al-Insān 76/2 (min nuṭfatin amshāj) and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/67. I do not repeat it here.
The methodological limit was set above; the meaning of the word consists of this, and no technical description is built upon it.
قَرَار — root ق-ر-ر: to stand in a place, to be fixed, to settle. From the same root come qarār (the place one stops), mustaqarr (a place of settlement), qurra (the cooling of the eye — the eye coming to rest in one place; treated at al-Furqān 25/74).
مَكِين — root م-ك-ن: to have a place, to become firm. Makān is from the same root. Makīn — firm in place, strong in standing. The word is used in the Qurʾān of a human being as well: innaka'l-yawma ladaynā makīnun amīn (Yūsuf 12/54).
The build of the construction must be recorded: qarārin makīn — "a firm resting place". Both words report fixity, and one comes as the adjective of the other. There is emphasis, that is.
And this construction will come back once more in the sūra: in the fiftieth verse the place in which the son of Mary and his mother are sheltered will be named rabwatin dhāti qarārin wa maʿīn. The same word: one the place at the beginning of the forming, the other a refuge. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as an observation: both places are sheltered, and both are named with the word qarār.
And here the real question of the block begins. In the twelfth verse the verb was khalaqnā; in the thirteenth it turns to jaʿalnā.
The distinction was recorded at al-Zukhruf 43/3 and holds here:
Jaʿala in Arabic reports the putting of a thing from one state into another — this is what separates it from khalaqa (to bring into being from nothing).
At the second step, that is, nothing new is brought into being; what exists is put from one state into another. This is the first link of the chain of verbs that will be tabulated at the fourteenth verse.