۞ فَلَمَّا قَضَىٰ مُوسَى ٱلْأَجَلَ وَسَارَ بِأَهْلِهِۦٓ ءَانَسَ مِن جَانِبِ ٱلطُّورِ نَارًۭا قَالَ لِأَهْلِهِ ٱمْكُثُوٓا۟ إِنِّىٓ ءَانَسْتُ نَارًۭا لَّعَلِّىٓ ءَاتِيكُم مِّنْهَا بِخَبَرٍ أَوْ جَذْوَةٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلنَّارِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَصْطَلُونَ
So when Moses completed the term and set out with his family, he descried a fire on the side of the mountain. He said to his family, ‘Wait! Indeed, I descry a fire! Maybe I will bring you some news from it, or a brand of fire so that you may warm yourselves.’
فَلَمَّآ أَتَىٰهَا نُودِىَ مِن شَٰطِئِ ٱلْوَادِ ٱلْأَيْمَنِ فِى ٱلْبُقْعَةِ ٱلْمُبَٰرَكَةِ مِنَ ٱلشَّجَرَةِ أَن يَٰمُوسَىٰٓ إِنِّىٓ أَنَا ٱللَّهُ رَبُّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
When he approached it, he was called from the right bank of the valley in that blessed site from the tree: ‘Moses! Indeed I am Allah, the Lord of all the worlds!’
وَأَنْ أَلْقِ عَصَاكَ ۖ فَلَمَّا رَءَاهَا تَهْتَزُّ كَأَنَّهَا جَآنٌّۭ وَلَّىٰ مُدْبِرًۭا وَلَمْ يُعَقِّبْ ۚ يَٰمُوسَىٰٓ أَقْبِلْ وَلَا تَخَفْ ۖ إِنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلْءَامِنِينَ
And: ‘Throw down your staff!’ And when he saw it wriggling as if it were a snake, he turned his back [to flee], without looking back. ‘Moses! Come forward, and do not be afraid. Indeed you are safe.’
ٱسْلُكْ يَدَكَ فِى جَيْبِكَ تَخْرُجْ بَيْضَآءَ مِنْ غَيْرِ سُوٓءٍۢ وَٱضْمُمْ إِلَيْكَ جَنَاحَكَ مِنَ ٱلرَّهْبِ ۖ فَذَٰنِكَ بُرْهَٰنَانِ مِن رَّبِّكَ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَلَإِي۟هِۦٓ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ قَوْمًۭا فَٰسِقِينَ
‘Insert your hand into your shirt. It will emerge white, without any fault, and keep your arms drawn in awe to your sides. These shall be two proofs from your Lord to Pharaoh and his elite. They are indeed a transgressing lot.’
قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى قَتَلْتُ مِنْهُمْ نَفْسًۭا فَأَخَافُ أَن يَقْتُلُونِ
He said, ‘My Lord! Indeed, I have killed one of their men, so I fear they will kill me.
وَأَخِى هَٰرُونُ هُوَ أَفْصَحُ مِنِّى لِسَانًۭا فَأَرْسِلْهُ مَعِىَ رِدْءًۭا يُصَدِّقُنِىٓ ۖ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ أَن يُكَذِّبُونِ
Aaron, my brother—he is more eloquent than me in speech. So send him with me as a helper to confirm me, for I fear that they will impugn me.’
قَالَ سَنَشُدُّ عَضُدَكَ بِأَخِيكَ وَنَجْعَلُ لَكُمَا سُلْطَٰنًۭا فَلَا يَصِلُونَ إِلَيْكُمَا ۚ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَآ أَنتُمَا وَمَنِ ٱتَّبَعَكُمَا ٱلْغَٰلِبُونَ
He said, ‘We will strengthen your arm by means of your brother, and invest both of you with such authority that they will not touch you. With the help of Our signs, you two, and those who follow the two of you, shall be the victors.’
فَلَمَّا جَآءَهُم مُّوسَىٰ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا بَيِّنَٰتٍۢ قَالُوا۟ مَا هَٰذَآ إِلَّا سِحْرٌۭ مُّفْتَرًۭى وَمَا سَمِعْنَا بِهَٰذَا فِىٓ ءَابَآئِنَا ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ
When Moses brought them Our manifest signs, they said, ‘This is nothing but concocted magic. We never heard of such a thing among our forefathers.’
وَقَالَ مُوسَىٰ رَبِّىٓ أَعْلَمُ بِمَن جَآءَ بِٱلْهُدَىٰ مِنْ عِندِهِۦ وَمَن تَكُونُ لَهُۥ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلدَّارِ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُفْلِحُ ٱلظَّٰلِمُونَ
Moses said, ‘My Lord knows best who brings guidance from Him, and in whose favour the outcome of that abode will be. The wrongdoers will not be felicitous.’
وَقَالَ فِرْعَوْنُ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْمَلَأُ مَا عَلِمْتُ لَكُم مِّنْ إِلَٰهٍ غَيْرِى فَأَوْقِدْ لِى يَٰهَٰمَٰنُ عَلَى ٱلطِّينِ فَٱجْعَل لِّى صَرْحًۭا لَّعَلِّىٓ أَطَّلِعُ إِلَىٰٓ إِلَٰهِ مُوسَىٰ وَإِنِّى لَأَظُنُّهُۥ مِنَ ٱلْكَٰذِبِينَ
Pharaoh said, ‘O [members of the] elite! I do not know of any god that you may have besides me. Haman, light for me a fire over clay, and build me a tower so that I may take a look at Moses’ god, and indeed I consider him to be a liar!’
وَٱسْتَكْبَرَ هُوَ وَجُنُودُهُۥ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ ٱلْحَقِّ وَظَنُّوٓا۟ أَنَّهُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا يُرْجَعُونَ
He and his hosts unduly acted arrogantly in the land, and thought they would not be brought back to Us.
فَأَخَذْنَٰهُ وَجُنُودَهُۥ فَنَبَذْنَٰهُمْ فِى ٱلْيَمِّ ۖ فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
So We seized him and his hosts, and threw them into the sea. So observe how was the fate of the wrongdoers!
وَجَعَلْنَٰهُمْ أَئِمَّةًۭ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى ٱلنَّارِ ۖ وَيَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ لَا يُنصَرُونَ
We made them leaders who invite to the Fire, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not receive any help.
وَأَتْبَعْنَٰهُمْ فِى هَٰذِهِ ٱلدُّنْيَا لَعْنَةًۭ ۖ وَيَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ هُم مِّنَ ٱلْمَقْبُوحِينَ
We made a curse pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the disfigured.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated from: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, qummi (all six present).
This third movement is the commissioning of Moses: the fire at the Mount, the divine call, the two signs, the pairing with Aaron, and the confrontation with a Pharaoh who answers prophecy with a tower to the sky — closing on the drowning and the theological verdict that Pharaoh's house became "leaders calling to the Fire."
The call at the tree (vv.29–30). All sources set the scene as a cold night in which Moses, having fulfilled the longer Midian term (the narrations in Qummī, al-Baḥrānī and al-Mīzān agree on ten years), loses the road and turns aside to a fire. Here the commentators split on a fine point of theology. al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī hold that Moses heard God's speech from the tree because God "created the speech in it," and that this was "the highest station of the prophets — to hear God's speech without intermediary." al-Mīzān pointedly disputes both claims: the tree was only a veil (ḥijāb) behind which God spoke (invoking 42:51, "from behind a veil"), and precisely because a veil is an intermediary, this was not the highest mode of address. All three, however, unite in denying that God indwells any place. al-Baḥrānī preserves the tradition's most arresting reading: al-Ṣādiq's identification of "the right bank of the valley" with the Euphrates, "the blessed spot" with Karbalāʾ, and "the tree" with Muḥammad — a typological (taʾwīl) layer reported, per the runbook, as attributed and not endorsed.
The two signs and Aaron (vv.31–35). The staff-serpent and the white hand "without harm" are read literally; al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī both draw the philosophical lesson that the staff's transformation proves "substances are of one kind." al-Mīzān notes the sign's wording ("without harm," i.e. not leprosy) is a deliberate correction of the extant Torah's "leprous as snow." On Moses' plea for Aaron, al-Mīzān clarifies the fear is that Moses' speech impediment would leave him unable to argue, not merely fear of denial. The response — "We will strengthen your arm by your brother" — draws from al-Baḥrānī the famous prophetic parallel: the Prophet embracing ʿAlī, "one by whom God strengthened my arm as He strengthened Moses' arm by Aaron," alongside al-Bursī's more esoteric "golden horseman = the likeness of ʿAlī" narrations (reported as-attributed).
Pharaoh's tower and the drowning (vv.36–42). Pharaoh dismisses the signs as "forged magic," claims "I know no god for you but me," and orders Haman to bake brick and raise a tower "to look upon the god of Moses." Qummī and al-Baḥrānī supply the vivid folk-narrative of the tower God's winds cast down, and the four starved vultures bearing Pharaoh's ark skyward. al-Mīzān reads the tower soberly — either Pharaoh's crude notion of a bodily deity in the sky, or a deliberate deception, or an astronomical observatory — and stresses that Pharaoh, though inwardly certain, denied out of "haughtiness" (27:14). The passage's hardest verse, "We made them leaders calling to the Fire" (v.41), draws careful handling from every Arabic source: al-Ṭabarsī says it "needs interpretation," al-Ṭūsī parses the fourfold senses of "making" and settles on "decreeing/naming their state," and al-Mīzān gives the decisive formula — it is jazāʾ (recompense for their prior disbelief), not ibtidāʾ (God initiating their misguidance). al-Baḥrānī and al-Mīzān both cap it with al-Ṣādiq's paired verses: the imams who "guide by God's command" versus those who "call to the Fire" by putting their own command before God's — the Qurʾanic charter, across all six sources, for distinguishing true from false leadership.