The Troops
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[39:23]
God bestows from on high the best of all teachings in the shape of a divine writ fully consistent within itself, repeating each statement [of the truth] in manifold forms – [a divine writ] whereat shiver the skins of all who of their Sustainer stand in awe: [but] in the end their skins and their hearts do soften at the remembrance of [the grace of] God....
Such is God’s guidance: He guides therewith him that wills [to be guided] – whereas he whom God lets go astray can never find any guide.

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* v.23 : Lit., “has been bestowing from on high,” i.e., step by step. The verbal form nazzala indicates both gradualness and continuity in the process of divine revelation and may, therefore, be appropriately rendered by the use of the present tense.
* This is the most acceptable meaning, in this context, of the term mathānī (pl. of mathnā), as explained by Zamakhsharī in his commentary on the above verse. Another possible meaning, preferred by Rāzī, is “pairing its statements,” i.e., referring to the polarity stressed in all Qur’anic teachings (e.g., command and prohibition, duties and rights, reward and punishment, paradise and hell, light and darkness, the general and the specific, and so forth). As regards the inner consistency of the Qur’ān, see also 4:82 and 25:32, as well as the corresponding notes.
* Or: “He guides therewith whomever He wills,” either of these two formulations being syntactically correct.
* See note 4 on 14:4.