Sabaʾ 34:10

Wa laqad ātaynā Dāwūda minnā faḍlā, yā jibālu awwibī maʿahū wa'ṭ-ṭayr, wa alannā lahu'l-ḥadīd

"We gave David a bounty from Us: 'O mountains! Echo back with him; and you birds too!' And We softened iron for him."

Here the sūra moves into a narrative, and the move is not abrupt. The ninth verse ended with the word munīb (one who turns); the tenth verse opens with the name of a servant who turned.

David was treated in detail at Ṣād 38/17-20 — there ذَا ٱلْأَيْدِ (possessor of strength), أَوَّاب (much-returning) and the glorification of the mountains were analysed. I rely on that treatment and record the differences here.

The most striking difference is in the first row, and it must be recorded: in Ṣād the event is narrated, in Sabaʾ the command itself is transmitted. The text passes from third-person narration straight into direct address.

I give this as an observation about the word order: instead of saying "We commanded the mountains", the verse gives the wording of the command. The reader does not hear about the event; he hears the command.

The concrete sense of the root: to turn, to come back. Āba — he returned. Maʾāb — the place of return. And the word awwāb (much-returning) was treated at Ṣād, where it was recorded that it occurs three times, for David, Solomon and Job (Ayyūb).

The verb here is awwibī — an imperative of Form II, addressed to a feminine. And the lexicographers give the word two senses:

Both readings are transmitted and they do not exclude one another; I do not impose a preference.

What is worth recording is this, and I give it as my own reading: both readings meet in the same picture — a voice coming back. A word spoken on a mountain returns from the mountain. The sense "to return" in the root and the physics of an echo meet in the same place; and the attribute awwāb (the servant who turns back) is from the same root. That is, David's attribute and the command given to the mountains come from the same word.

وَٱلطَّيْرَ — the lexicographers dwell on the inflection of the word: ṭayr is in the accusative. It is said either to be a conjunct to an elided verb (wa sakhkharna'ṭ-ṭayra), or a conjunct to the position of the vocative. Both explanations are transmitted; since they do not change the sense, I do not impose a preference.

ل-ي-ن — the sense of the root is softness. Layyin — soft. Alāna — Form IV: he softened.

The root ح-د-د and the word ḥadīd were analysed in detail at al-Ḥadīd. What was recorded there holds here unchanged, and its summary is this: the root means "limit, edge, sharp cutting edge"; ḥadd a limit, ḥudūd limits, ḥaddād a blacksmith — and iron takes its name from its sharpness. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is that the two sūras take hold of iron at two different points, and this comparison must be recorded:

At al-Ḥadīd it was treated how iron is set together with the Book and the balance as one of the three legs of justice. I rely on that treatment.

And I record the difference here as my own reading; its support is the third row of the table above: in al-Ḥadīd iron is named for its hardness — baʾsun shadīd. In Sabaʾ the same substance is named for the removal of its hardness. That is, the two verses take up two opposite qualities of the same substance: one its staying hard, the other its growing soft. And both produce a benefit.

I draw no conclusion about the history of metallurgy from this expression of the verse. The working of iron with fire, its being heated and beaten, is a known craft, and the verse does not give a description of a craft. No matching with natural science is constructed; what the verse says is that something was made possible for David.