that Moses possessed no knowledge of sorcery. A sorcerer does not fear what he does, knowing that it has no external reality and is not as it appears to the eyes of onlookers.[67]
(Swallowing the Forms of the Serpents and the Sorcerers’ Faith)
God commanded Moses to cast down his staff, telling him that it would “swallow what they have made” [Ta Ha 20:69]. When Moses cast down his staff and it became a serpent, all the sorcerers knew, from what they had recognized of his fear, that had this proceeded from him as a sorcerer, he would not have feared. They saw his staff as a real serpent and then knew that it was an unseen act from the God in whom he called them to believe, and that he had no acquaintance with the science of sorcery.
That serpent swallowed everything in the valley of ropes and staffs—that is, it swallowed the forms of serpents from them, so that they appeared as the ropes and staffs they were. God withheld their sight from that. For God says, “It swallows what they have made.” They had not made the ropes or the staffs; they had made the forms of serpents in the eyes of onlookers, and these were what Moses’ staff swallowed.
Pay attention to what I have mentioned, for the commentators have overlooked this understanding of God Most High’s reports. He did not say that it swallowed their ropes and staffs. For the sorcerers, the sign was Moses’ fear and the removal of the serpent forms from the ropes and staffs. They knew that what Moses had brought was from God, and every last one of them believed in what he had brought.
At this sign they fell down prostrate,
Notlar
[67]
(The letters “lā ʿayn” have been retained as in the source, without supplementation or substitution.)
Translator’s note TN948-1: The supplied text separates the letters as lā ʿayn at the point rendered “to the eyes of onlookers.” The translation follows the contextual sense; original note 67 preserves the unusual source spelling. The subsequent interpretation expressly distinguishes swallowing the apparent serpent forms from swallowing the ropes and staffs themselves.
