يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلرَّسُولُ لَا يَحْزُنكَ ٱلَّذِينَ يُسَٰرِعُونَ فِى ٱلْكُفْرِ
Yā ayyuha'r-rasūlu lā yaḥzunka'lladhīna yusāriʿūna fi'l-kufri mina'lladhīna qālū āmannā bi-afwāhihim wa lam tuʾmin qulūbuhum
"O Messenger! Let those who race one another into denial not grieve you — those who say 'we believe' with their mouths while their hearts have not believed, and those who have become Jews. They are listeners to falsehood, listeners to another people who have not come to you. They shift the words from their places."
The verse speaks of two parties — alladhīna qālū āmannā bi-afwāhihim and alladhīna hādū — but the act is shared: yusāriʿūna fi'l-kufr.
The opposition ب-ف-و-ه / ق-ل-ب should be recorded: qālū āmannā bi-afwāhihim wa lam tuʾmin qulūbuhum. The distance between mouth and heart was treated at al-Fatḥ 48/11 (yaqūlūna bi-alsinatihim mā laysa fī qulūbihim) and at Āl ʿImrān 3/167.
سَمَّٰعُونَ لِلْكَذِبِ سَمَّٰعُونَ لِقَوْمٍ ءَاخَرِينَ لَمْ يَأْتُوكَ — sammāʿ: an intensive form — one who listens much. And it is repeated twice: once to falsehood, once to a people who have not come to you.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the second phrase: the verse says that the party seeking the ruling has itself come on behalf of someone else — the one asking is not asking his own question.
يُحَرِّفُونَ ٱلْكَلِمَ مِن بَعْدِ مَوَاضِعِهِۦ — taḥrīf (ح-ر-ف): to shift a thing towards its edge, to its side. The root was treated at al-Nisāʾ 4/46 and at al-Baqara 2/75; I rely on that treatment.
يَقُولُونَ إِنْ أُوتِيتُمْ هَٰذَا فَخُذُوهُ وَإِن لَّمْ تُؤْتَوْهُ فَٱحْذَرُوا۟ — and the working of distortion is described: the ruling is chosen in advance, and the authority is sought to match it.
I record this as an observation: the verse takes as its subject not recourse to arbitration but fixing the desired outcome beforehand and then looking for an arbiter.
أَكَّٰلُونَ لِلسُّحْتِ (42) — suḥt (س-ح-ت): to scrape out by the root, to dry up the root of a thing. The lexicographers explain the word as "gain that tears out the blessing of its owner by the root". And again an intensive form: akkālūn.
فَإِن جَآءُوكَ فَٱحْكُم بَيْنَهُمْ أَوْ أَعْرِضْ عَنْهُمْ — and the one addressed is given two options. The exegetes differ on whether this choice was later removed; no preference is adopted.
وَإِنْ حَكَمْتَ فَٱحْكُم بَيْنَهُم بِٱلْقِسْطِ — but if judgement is given, the condition is one: bi'l-qisṭ. And this is on the same line as al-Nisāʾ 4/135.
وَكَيْفَ يُحَكِّمُونَكَ وَعِندَهُمُ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةُ فِيهَا حُكْمُ ٱللَّهِ ثُمَّ يَتَوَلَّوْنَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ (43) — and the question shows the contradiction: to turn to someone else while their own Book is beside them, and then to turn away from the ruling that comes out as well.