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IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[44:33]
and gave them such signs [of Our grace] as would clearly presage a test.

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* v.33 : Lit., “as would have in them a manifest test”: an allusion to the long line of prophets raised in their midst, as well as to the freedom and prosperity which they were to enjoy in the Promised Land. All this presaged a test of their sincerity with regard to the spiritual principles which in the beginning raised them “above all other people” and, thus, of their willingness to act as God’s message-bearers to all the world. The formulation of the above sentence implies elliptically that they did not pass that test inasmuch as they soon forgot the spiritual mission for which they had been elected, and began to regard themselves as God’s “chosen people” simply on account of their descent from Abraham: a notion which the Qur’ān condemns in many places. Apart from this, the majority of the children of Israel very soon lost their erstwhile conviction that the life in this world is but the first and not the final stage of human life, and – as their Biblical history shows – abandoned themselves entirely to the pursuit of material prosperity and power. (See next note.)