al-Māʾida 5:64

"They said, 'God's hand is tied.' Their own hands are tied, and they are cursed for what they said. No; both His hands are open; He gives as He wills."

Per the method (Method) this should be recorded: the verse does not load an attribute onto a community; it transmits an utterance that was made and answers that utterance. The subject of the sentence is qālat — a verb.

The root غ-ل-ل: a ring or fetter put on the neck or the hand; to bind tightly. Ghull — a shackle.

The lexicographers record the hand's being tied as an established idiom in Arabic for miserliness — and the same idiom occurs as counsel at al-Isrāʾ 17/29: wa lā tajʿal yadaka maghlūlatan ilā ʿunuqika wa lā tabsuṭhā kulla'l-basṭ. Treated there; I rely on that treatment.

That is, the objection is a claim that divine generosity has been cut off.

The answer turns the same idiom around — and gives it in the dual: yadāhu.

This commentary's stance on ambiguous expressions is settled in Method and is applied here as well: the question of modality is not entered into. The stance of the early generations — "accept as it stands, refer the manner to God" — and the interpretive reading — "a figure for power and generosity" — stand side by side in classical exegesis; no preference is adopted.

But at the level of language this can be recorded: the sentence answers from inside the idiom the objector used — against the tied hand, the open hand. And with yunfiqu kayfa yashāʾ the sense of the idiom is said openly: giving.

The same sentence occurs twice in this sūra — at 5/14 it was said of another community too. And this repetition can be verified from the text.

I record this as an observation: the verse names as the requital not a punishment coming from outside but an internal division.

كُلَّمَآ أَوْقَدُوا۟ نَارًا لِّلْحَرْبِ أَطْفَأَهَا ٱللَّهُ — kulla-mā: every time. A pattern conveying continuity.

And again the qualification: wa la-yazīdanna kathīran minhum — "many of them". It does not say all; the sūra keeps this qualification up insistently (kathīr at 5/62, 5/64, 5/66, 5/71; ummatun muqtaṣida at 5/66).