Translation:

We made a covenant with you, and raised the Mount above you, saying: ‘Hold on firmly to that which We have given you and  bear in mind its precepts, so that you may guard yourselves against evil.’ Yet after that you turned away, and but for God’s grace and mercy you would have surely been among the lost. You have surely heard of those of you who violated the Sabbath. We said to them: ‘You shall be changed into detested apes.’ We made them an example to their own generation and to those who followed them, and a lesson to the Godfearing.

Tafsir (Commentary):

A covenant was made with Moses’ people that they would faithfully carry out the Ten Commandments. The Talmud tells how, at this time, God turned the Mount upside down on top of them and told them either to accept the teachings of the Torah, or be destroyed there and then. The same is the case with everyone who embraces true faith. To have faith is to make a contract with God that one will live and die in accordance with His will. What a grave pledge this is. On the one hand there is man—a tiny, helpless speck in God’s world—and on the other, God, whose might upholds the universe. If man keeps his word, he will be granted God’s eternal blessings. But if he turns away from his commitment, he is in grave danger of being cast into hell-fire, never to emerge again.

Everyone who believes in God should go through the same experience as Moses’ people. Everyone who binds himself to the contract of faith should live in trepidation of breaking his religious vows, thereby bringing catastrophe down upon himself.

Sometimes those entrusted with the law of God go astray by contradicting it in practice, while finding words to prove that they are following it to the letter. The Jews, for instance, were commanded to keep holy the Sabbath day, and refrain from worldly pursuits on that day. But they violated it and went about their work on the Sabbath as on any other day. Furthermore, they sought to justify their actions and make out that what they were doing conformed to the will of God. This audacity incurred God’s displeasure and they were turned into apes. Whenever one turns against the law of God, one is putting oneself on a par with animals who follow no code of ethics. Those who play games with divine law, then should fear being deprived of their human dignity, and being debased to the level of animals, as was the case with the Jews.

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