al-Dukhān 44:30-31

Wa laqad najjaynā banī isrāʾīla mina'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn · Min firʿawna, innahu kāna ʿāliyan mina'l-musrifīn

"And We delivered the Children of Israel from the abasing punishment — from Pharaoh. He had risen high, one of those who exceed all bounds."

The root occurred in al-Qamar, al-Ṣaff and al-Maʿārij. Its concrete sense is explained by the lexicographers by way of "high ground, a hill": najwa — high ground the flood does not reach. From this najāt — deliverance: to climb where the water cannot come.

And the verb is in Form II: najjā. Its difference from Form I (najā — he was saved) is transitivity and intensification: to deliver a whole community, one by one.

Root: ه-و-ن. It occurred in al-Fajr and al-Mujādala. Its concrete sense: lightness, worthlessness. Hawn — softness, ease; huwān — degradation. Muhīn — the active participle of Form IV: that which lowers, that which abases.

And now let us look at the contrast within the sūra:

The sūra names the punishment with two separate attributes, and the two show two separate kinds of wounding.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: what the Children of Israel were delivered from is named not as pain but as humiliation. And this is the truest description of the condition of slavery — pain comes and goes, humiliation is a position.

And the principle recorded in Qāf should be recalled here too: what an attribute says depends on what the one who bears it does with that attribute.

These two words stand in apposition to mina'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn in the preceding verse.

The sentence, that is, is built thus: "We delivered them from the punishment — from Pharaoh."

And this is not a repetition but a definition.

In Arabic an appositive explains what precedes it. What is explained here is the punishment itself, and what is given as the explanation is a person.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the case-ending of the two verses: the verse sets Pharaoh not as the cause of the punishment but as the punishment itself. The expected expression would be "from Pharaoh's punishment" (a genitive); the expression that comes is an appositive that puts Pharaoh in the place of the punishment.

A human being is named as a punishment.

It was recorded above (at verse 19): lā taʿlū ʿala'llāh (the warning) and kāna ʿāliyan (the verdict) are from the same root.

What is to be added here is the pattern: kāna + an active participle. At the third verse it was recorded that this pattern reports an ongoing attribute. Not "he exalted himself once", then, but "he was one who rises".

And note: ʿāliyan comes indefinite, and mina'l-musrifīn follows it. The sentence, that is, places him within a class: one of those who exceed all bounds.

I give this as my own reading: the verse does not present Pharaoh as an example of a unique evil; it presents him as an example of a kind. And the principle recorded in Method works here: what the verse describes is an attribute, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.

The root occurred in al-Dhāriyāt. Its concrete sense: to exceed the bound, to lose the measure, to pass the limit in a thing. Isrāf — exceeding the limit in spending is only one instance; the root itself covers every kind of exceeding of a limit.

And the standing together of the two words builds a description:

Both are words of overflowing, and they work on two separate axes.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the definitions of the two roots: the verse describes a tyrant by two overflowings — rising above his own place and exceeding his own measure.