فَلَمَّا جَآءَ سُلَيْمَٰنَ قَالَ أَتُمِدُّونَنِ بِمَالٍ فَمَآ ءَاتَىٰنِۦَ ٱللَّهُ خَيْرٌ مِّمَّآ ءَاتَىٰكُم بَلْ أَنتُم بِهَدِيَّتِكُمْ تَفْرَحُونَ · ٱرْجِعْ إِلَيْهِمْ فَلَنَأْتِيَنَّهُم بِجُنُودٍ لَّا قِبَلَ لَهُم بِهَا وَلَنُخْرِجَنَّهُم مِّنْهَآ أَذِلَّةً وَهُمْ صَٰغِرُونَ
fa-lammā jāʾa Sulaymāna qāla a-tumiddūnani bi-mālin fa-mā ātāniya'llāhu khayrun mimmā ātākum, bal antum bi-hadiyyatikum tafraḥūn · irjiʿ ilayhim fa-la-naʾtiyannahum bi-junūdin lā qibala lahum bihā wa la-nukhrijannahum minhā adhillatan wa hum ṣāghirūn
"When the envoy came to Solomon, he said: 'Do you reinforce me with wealth? What God has given me is better than what He has given you. It is you who take joy in your own gift. Go back to them! We shall come upon them with armies they cannot withstand, and we shall drive them out from there abased and made small.'"
The root م-د-د: to extend, to add to, to prolong. From Form IV, imdād: to help by adding to something, to send reinforcement. In a military context the word is also used for "sending up supporting troops".
The choice of verb is worth recording, and I give this as an observation about the word: the gift is met not with the verb "to give" but with "to reinforce". The question is thus: are you making up something that is lacking in me?
And the ground of the answer follows immediately: fa-mā ātāniya'llāhu khayrun mimmā ātākum. The comparison is drawn between two things given, and on both sides the verb is the same: ātā.
The particle bal ("on the contrary") conveys a change of direction. And the sentence says something beyond a refusal of the gift.
A point about word order must be recorded: bi-hadiyyatikum has been brought forward (it comes before the verb) and in Arabic such fronting conveys emphasis and restriction.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the fronting: the sentence does not say "you rejoice" — it says "it is you who rejoice in your own gift". The joy thus comes not from what the other party will receive but from what the giver has given. This is the answer of someone who knows that the gift is a test.
And a measure recorded in Sabaʾ applies here: that the means given are a test will be said by Solomon in his own words at verse 40 (li-yabluwanī a-ashkuru am akfur). The ground of the answer at verse 36 is thus given in his own words four verses later.
The root ق-ب-ل: the front, that which faces. Qibal here: the strength to withstand, the capacity. The idiom means "they have no power to stand before it".
وَهُمْ صَٰغِرُونَ — root ص-غ-ر: to be small. Ṣāghir — one made small not by his own wish but by compulsion.
| Verse | Expression | Who says it |
|---|---|---|
| 34 | wa jaʿalū aʿizzata ahlihā adhillatan | The queen — what kings do |
| 37 | wa la-nukhrijannahum minhā adhillatan | Solomon — what he will do |
This overlap can be verified from the text and must be recorded. I propose a reading, and I state that it is my own: the queen had described what kings do; Solomon meets her words with the same word. And the distinction lies not in the outcome itself but in the condition under which it would come about: the letter at verse 31 had left a door open (wa'tūnī muslimīn), and when that door was used at verses 42-44 the threat did not come to pass.
I give this as a reading; the verse does not make this connection explicitly. What can be verified from the text is the repetition of the word and the outcome of the narrative.