وَلَقَدْ أَرَيْنَٰهُ ءَايَٰتِنَا كُلَّهَا فَكَذَّبَ وَأَبَىٰ · قَالَ أَجِئْتَنَا لِتُخْرِجَنَا مِنْ أَرْضِنَا بِسِحْرِكَ يَٰمُوسَىٰ … قَالَ مَوْعِدُكُمْ يَوْمُ ٱلزِّينَةِ وَأَن يُحْشَرَ ٱلنَّاسُ ضُحًى
Wa laqad araynāhu āyātinā kullahā fa-kadhdhaba wa abā · Qāla a-jiʾtanā li-tukhrijanā min arḍinā bi-siḥrika yā Mūsā · Fa-la-naʾtiyannaka bi-siḥrin mithlihi faj-ʿal baynanā wa baynaka mawʿidan lā nukhlifuhu naḥnu wa lā anta makānan suwā · Qāla mawʿidukum yawmu'z-zīnati wa an yuḥshara'n-nāsu ḍuḥā
"Indeed We showed him all Our signs; he denied and refused. · He said: 'Have you come to drive us out of our land with your sorcery, O Moses? · Then we shall surely bring you sorcery like it. Set a meeting between us and you which neither we nor you shall break — in an even place.' · 'Your meeting is the day of the festival, at the hour when the people gather in the forenoon,' he said."
Two verbs are named, and the second must be recorded: abā — he refused, would not come near, resisted.
This is the verb used of Iblīs at al-Baqara on 2/34 and it was treated there: abā wa'stakbara — "abā is the act itself, istakbara the ground of the act." I rely on that treatment.
And the same verb will come back of Iblīs in the hundred and sixteenth verse of this sūra: fa-sajadū illā Iblīsa abā.
This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: the sūra tells two stories — one the refusal of a king, the other the refusal of a creature — and names both with a single verb. And in neither is the ground of the refusal ignorance: Pharaoh has seen all the signs (āyātinā kullahā), and Iblīs received the command directly.
The sentence recorded at al-Baqara holds here too, and rather than repeat it I name it: "unbelief is not a lack of knowledge; it is the covering over of what is known."
Moses himself sets the time proposed, and the day he chooses is worth recording: yawmu'z-zīna, and the hour ḍuḥā (the forenoon).
I record this as an observation: the meeting is set not in a hidden place with few witnesses but on a festival day when the people gather, and at the brightest hour of the day. And the party who made the proposal had asked for "an even place" (makānan suwā) — that is, a place giving neither of the two an advantage.
سُوًى — root س-و-ي: equivalence, evenness. Suwā — what is equal for both sides. The root was treated at al-Infiṭār on 82/7 (fa-sawwāk) and at al-Shams; I rely on those treatments.
The root ز-ي-ن occurs twice in the sūra, and both are worth recording: yawmu'z-zīna (59) and awzāran min zīnati'l-qawm (87 — the ornaments from which the calf was made). The same root, one the name of a festival, the other the material of an idol. This is a distribution that can be verified from the text.