Sabaʾ 34:48-49

Qul inna rabbī yaqdhifu bi'l-ḥaqq, ʿallāmu'l-ghuyūb · Qul jāʾa'l-ḥaqqu wa mā yubdiʾu'l-bāṭilu wa mā yuʿīd

"Say: 'My Lord hurls the truth. He is the great knower of all things unseen.' Say: 'The truth has come. Falsehood can neither begin anything nor bring it back.'"

The concrete sense of the root: to throw a thing far, to hurl it. Qadhafa bi'l-ḥajar — he threw a stone. And the word conveys that what is thrown goes fast and with force.

That the verb is used in this context is striking and must be recorded: for revelation, verbs such as "to send down" (inzāl), "to announce" (inbāʾ), "to recite" (tilāwa) are common. The verb chosen here is qadhf — to hurl.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the picture in the root: qadhf is a thing thrown towards a target, and it does not wait for the other side's acceptance. The verb pictures the coming of the truth not as an offer but as a hit.

And this verb will be used once more in the sūra, of the other side — this is one of its most striking verbal weaves:

The same verb, two sides, two objects. And the difference lies in three places: who throws, what is thrown, and the distance.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verb the two verses share: on one side the truth is thrown, and where it is thrown from is not said; on the other side the unseen is thrown, and it is stated that it is thrown from far off. What is thrown from far off does not find its target. The sūra describes the way both sides make their claims with the same verb, and sets the difference between them in terms of whether the throw lands.

عَلَّٰمُ ٱلْغُيُوب — an intensive form (faʿʿāl): one who knows much. And ghuyūb is a plural: things unseen.

This is the fourth step on the sūra's line of the unseen (3, 14, 48, 53), tabulated above in the treatment of 34/14. In the third verse it was ʿālimi'l-ghayb (singular); here it is ʿallāmu'l-ghuyūb (intensive plus plural). As the sūra nears its close it repeats the same attribute, enlarged.

"The truth has come; falsehood can neither begin nor bring back."

Two verbs are set against one another:

And this pair is generally used in the Qurʾān of creation (yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduh — He begins creation, then repeats it). Here the same pair is negated of falsehood.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the common use of the two verbs in the Qurʾān: the denial of the verbs of creating to falsehood says that falsehood produces nothing. Falsehood can neither build anything new nor bring back what it built in the past.

And the lexicographers give the sentence another sense as well:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The place of the sentence in the sūra must be recorded: in the forty-third verse the truth was called siḥr (wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū li'l-ḥaqqi lammā jāʾahum in hādhā illā siḥrun mubīn). The forty-ninth verse answers with the same word: jāʾa'l-ḥaqq.

Five occurrences, in five separate places in the sūra. And what was rejected in the forty-third verse along with the verb "came" is announced in the forty-ninth with the verb "came" again. This is an exchange that can be verified within the sūra.