Sabaʾ 34:38-39

Wa'lladhīna yasʿawna fī āyātinā muʿājizīna ulāʾika fi'l-ʿadhābi muḥḍarūn · Qul inna rabbī yabsuṭu'r-rizqa li-man yashāʾu min ʿibādihī wa yaqdiru lah, wa mā anfaqtum min shayʾin fa-huwa yukhlifuh, wa huwa khayru'r-rāziqīn

"Those who run about to make Our signs of no effect will be brought into the punishment. Say: 'My Lord spreads out provision for whom He wills of His servants, and straitens it for him too. Whatever you spend, He replaces it. He is the best of providers.'"

The thirty-eighth verse is almost a word-for-word repetition of the fifth. I tabulated it above in the treatment of 34/4-5; here I set their consequences side by side:

The difference is in the second column: the fifth verse states the quality of the punishment, the thirty-eighth states being brought into it.

مُحْضَرُون — root ح-ض-ر: to be present, to be at hand. The passive participle of Form IV: those who are brought, those who are made to attend. The word conveys not walking there on one's own feet but being brought.

And this belongs to the same family as mawqūfūn (those halted) in the thirty-first verse: both words are passive. Throughout that scene the sūra places people by the act of another. I record this as an observation about the word order.

The thirty-ninth verse is a repetition of the thirty-sixth — but two additions have been made:

Both additions narrow, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the function of the two words: min ʿibādih names the recipient of the provision as a servant; lahū states that the straitening too is for the same person. That is, the thirty-ninth verse sets the spreading out and the straitening not as two different groups but as two possibilities belonging to one and the same person.

And what follows is wholly different: the thirty-sixth verse ended with a note of ignorance; the thirty-ninth passes to a command about an act.

"Whatever you spend, He replaces it."

خ-ل-ف — the sense of the root: to come after, to take the place of. The root was treated at al-Fatḥ and at Fāṭir 35/39 (khalāʾif fi'l-arḍ). I do not repeat it here.

The verb here is of Form IV: akhlafa — "to put another in its place, to give what comes after it".

And the choice of verb must be recorded. I give this as my own reading; its support is the sense of the root: the verse does not say "He gives its recompense", it says "He gives what comes in its place". That is, another thing comes after what is spent. The verb describes not a reward but a replacing.

And the place of this clause in the sūra is decisive:

A chain is built in four steps, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the order of the verses: the objection was built on the amount of wealth. The answer turns the measure from amount to flow. The sūra does not reject wealth; it changes where wealth stands: not a heap held in the hand, but something that passes through the hand.

And at al-Ḥadīd the trusteeship of wealth (mustakhlafīna fīh — 57/7) was treated in detail; I rely on that treatment. It is striking that the word in al-Ḥadīd is from the same root: خ-ل-ف. That is, the two sūras describe the changing of hands of wealth with the same root.

The same root in two directions: one says how wealth comes, the other what happens after it goes. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

خَيْرُ ٱلرَّٰزِقِين — and the verse ends with a construction in which providers are named in the plural. The construction does not deny that others give provision — it states who comes first in the order. This belongs to the same family as the pattern treated at al-Zumar 39/44 (lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā — not a denial but a naming of ownership).