al-Baqara 2:209-212 — Slipping, mockery and point of view

"If you slip after the clear proofs have come to you, know that God is mighty, wise."

زَلَلْتُم — root ز-ل-ل: the slipping of the foot. The choice of word is striking: not turning, not denying, not refusing — slipping. The subject, that is, is not a decision but a failure to hold on.

And the same expression as at verse 213 occurs here too: min baʿdi mā jāʾatkumu'l-bayyināt — after the clear proofs have come. The same clause four verses apart: the trouble is not in the knowledge.

"Ask the Children of Israel: how many clear signs We gave them…"

سَلْ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ — the long history recounted through the first third of the sūra is summed up here in a single sentence and used as proof: the abundance of proofs given does not of itself bring change.

"The life of this world has been made to seem fair to those who cover over, and they mock those who believe. But those who guard themselves will be above them on the day of resurrection."

زُيِّنَ — a passive verb: the one who adorns is not named. This pattern had been used earlier in the sūra; the passive construction carries the situation of a person not noticing how his own way of seeing has been built for him.

And سُخْرِيَّة (mockery) comes here as a consequence: when the life of this world becomes the measure, whatever does not fit the measure looks ridiculous. The verse recounts mockery not as a problem of character but as the natural consequence of a point of view — this is recorded as a reading, and its ground is that the two clauses are joined with wāw.

وَٱللَّهُ يَرْزُقُ مَن يَشَآءُ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ — this sentence at the end of the section says that the thing mocked (poverty, weakness) cannot be a measure.