قَالَ فَٱهْبِطْ مِنْهَا فَمَا يَكُونُ لَكَ أَن تَتَكَبَّرَ فِيهَا فَٱخْرُجْ إِنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰغِرِينَ
"He said: 'Then go down from it! It is not for you to be great in it. Go out! You are among the lowly.'"
A point of word order must be recorded: the verse has three commands, and two of them do the same work.
| Order | Command | Root | What it states |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fa'hbiṭ | ه-ب-ط | Go down — movement downward |
| 2 | — | — | Fa-mā yakūnu laka an tatakabbara fīhā — the ground |
| 3 | Fa'khruj | خ-ر-ج | Go out — movement outward |
The two verbs state two different directions: hubūṭ is vertical (downward), khurūj horizontal (outward). And the ground comes in between them.
The root ه-ب-ط: to come down from a high place. The root was treated at 2/36 and 2/61 in al-Baqara (ihbiṭū miṣran) and at 11/48 in Hūd (ihbiṭ bi-salāmin minnā). I rely on those treatments.
I record this as my own reading and it is not binding: the same verb (ihbiṭū) will be said to Adam too in the twenty-fourth verse. That is, in al-Aʿrāf both Iblīs and Adam receive the command "go down" — but alongside Iblīs's there stands innaka mina'ṣ-ṣāghirīn, and alongside Adam's wa lakum fi'l-arḍi mustaqarrun wa matāʿun ilā ḥīn. The same verb, with two different endings. This is a contrast that can be verified from the text.
The sense of the root: smallness. *Ṣaghār is explained by the lexicographers as "abasement, being brought low" — that is, not smallness of size but smallness of position.
The word will occur a second time in this sūra: wa'nqalabū ṣāghirīn (119) — used of Pharaoh's side when the sorcerers are defeated.
| Place | Who | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 7/13 | Iblīs | The answer to making oneself great |
| 7/119 | Pharaoh's sorcerers / his side | The answer to defeat |
I record this as an observation: the sūra uses the same word both at the beginning of the story and in the middle of it. And in both places the word comes as the answer to takabbur (making oneself great) — expressly in verse 13 (an tatakabbara fīhā → mina'ṣ-ṣāghirīn), indirectly in verse 119 (fa-ghulibū hunālika wa'nqalabū ṣāghirīn).
The sentence does not forbid by saying "do not be great"; it says "being great is not a thing that is to be yours".
The pattern mā yakūnu laka an… in Arabic gives the sense "this is not for you, this does not befit you". The same pattern was treated at 19/35 in Maryam (mā kāna li'llāhi an yattakhidha min walad) and at 33/36 in al-Aḥzāb.
I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a prohibition but a statement of impossibility. What Iblīs did is named not as a thing forbidden to be done but as a thing that will not be. And the finding recorded in al-Baqara, that pride is not a reality but a supposition, finds its counterpart here at the level of word order — the "to reckon it so" sense of Form X / Form V and the "not a thing that will be" sense of the pattern mā yakūnu laka look to the same place.