لَّا تُدْرِكُهُ ٱلْأَبْصَٰرُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ ٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلْخَبِيرُ
"Sight does not grasp Him, but He grasps all sight. He is the one who penetrates to the finest thing, the All-Aware."
The د-ر-ك root: to catch up with, to reach, to grasp. The root was treated at Yāsīn 36/40 and al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/61.
The lexicographers record this difference: idrāk is to reach a thing and encompass it; ruʾya is only to see. This distinction is one of the supports of the theological debate over the question of the vision of God.
Per the method (Method): no theological debate is entered into in this commentary. I confine myself to transmitting the readings in the classical works of tafsīr, and I do not impose a preference.
And the symmetry the verse itself sets up is worth recording: lā tudrikuhu'l-abṣār / wa huwa yudriku'l-abṣār. The same verb, in two directions: one negative, the other positive. And the same structure was treated at al-Baqara 2/255 (wa lā yuḥīṭūna bi-shayʾin min ʿilmih): the encompassing being one-way.
ٱللَّطِيف — the root ل-ط-ف was treated at Luqmān 31/16 (to penetrate to the finest place). And the placing of the attribute here is worth recording: the one who cannot be seen is named as the one who reaches the finest thing. That is, distance and nearness stand in the same sentence — this is the same structure as the one treated at al-Shūrā 42/11 (laysa ka-mithlihī shayʾun wa huwa'l-samīʿu'l-baṣīr).