أَنِ ٱعْمَلْ سَٰبِغَٰتٍ وَقَدِّرْ فِى ٱلسَّرْدِ وَٱعْمَلُوا۟ صَٰلِحًا إِنِّى بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ
| Command | To whom | About what |
|---|---|---|
| Iʿmal sābighāt | Singular — David | Craft |
| Qaddir fi's-sard | Singular — David | Measure |
| Waʿmalū ṣāliḥā | Plural — all of them | Deed |
The most striking place in the verse is the change of number in the third command, and I record this as my own reading: the first two commands are singular and concern a craft; the third command shifts suddenly to the plural and becomes a command about conduct.
And the two commands use the same verb: iʿmal (make) and iʿmalū (do). That is, making armour and doing righteous deeds are named with a single word: ع-م-ل.
This choice of word must be recorded. The verse does not set handwork and righteous deeds up as two separate domains — it makes them two objects of the same verb. And at Fāṭir 35/10 (wa'l-ʿamalu'ṣ-ṣāliḥu yarfaʿuh) the carrying power of deeds was treated; I rely on that treatment.
And this joins with the command to give thanks later in the sūra: in the thirteenth verse Solomon will be told iʿmalū āla Dāwūda shukrā — the same verb again, this time with thanks as its object.
The same verb in three verses, with three different objects: a craft, a conduct, a disposition. I record this as my own reading, and its support is the repetition of the verb: the sūra names thanks not as a feeling but as something done.
The root of the word is س-ب-غ. (It is not to be confused with ص-ب-غ; the second is ṣibgha — the root of dyeing, of giving colour.) The sense of the root س-ب-غ: to be ample, to be full and wide, to be long enough to cover a thing over.
Sābigh — ample, full, complete. And the same root is used in the Qurʾān for favour: wa asbagha ʿalaykum niʿamah (Luqmān 31/20) — "He spread His favours over you abundantly."
The form of the word in the verse is striking: sābighāt — plural, feminine, and its mawṣūf (the noun it qualifies) is not stated. The word "armour" does not occur in the verse. What is said is only the attribute: "the ample ones".
I record this as an observation about the word order: what is said is not the name of the object but the property required of it. That is, the command is not "make armour" but "make things that cover fully". That armour is meant is understood from the next command (the measure of the weave).
The concrete sense of the root: to set things out one after another, in regular sequence. Sard — to link rings into one another in a row; the weave of a coat of mail. And the same root is used in Arabic for "to recount a discourse without a break, one thing after another" — close to the English "to reel off".
That the word is used for the weave of mail is worth recording: chain mail consists of small rings hooked into one another. So sard is the ordering of the rings.
قَدِّرْ — root ق-د-ر: to set a measure, to determine an amount. An imperative of Form II: "get its measure right".
And the command itself is a rule of craft. The lexicographers explain it thus: the rings of a coat of mail must be neither too thick (it becomes heavy, it cannot be carried) nor too thin (it is pierced). The measure lies between two excesses.
I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the two commands of the verse stand side by side: the first command asks for amplitude (sābighāt — let it cover fully), the second asks for measure (qaddir — let its rings be set right). Amplitude and measure are set as two conditions of the same work. And the command that follows immediately is righteous deeds. That is, in giving the rule of a craft the text has also given the rule of a conduct: wide enough, but not without measure.
And the root ق-د-ر will occur twice more in the sūra: in the eighteenth verse (wa qaddarnā fīha's-sayr — We set the travel to measure) and in the thirty-sixth and thirty-ninth verses (yabsuṭu'r-rizqa … wa yaqdir). I shall tabulate this at the end.
إِنِّى بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ — and after the plural command the verse ends with a plural watching: bimā taʿmalūna — "what you do". The one who asks for measure in the craft and the one who sees the righteousness of the deed are the same subject in the same sentence.