'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (and when you said: o moses! we will not endure one kind of food) we will not endure eating just honey and quails; (so pray unto your lord) ask your lord (for us that he bring forth for us of that which the earth groweth of its herbs and its cucumbers and its corn and its lentils and its onions. he) i.e. moses (said: would you exchange that which is higher) i.e. that which is better and more honourable: honey and quails (for that which is lower) that which is much worse: lentils and onions? (go down to any city) where you came from; and it is also said that this means any city, (thus you shall get that which you demand) what you have requested is to be found there. (and humiliation) the capitation tax (and wretchedness) the attire of poverty (were stamped upon them) were imposed on them (and they were visited with wrath from allah) as they deserved to be forsaken by allah. (that) being forsaken by allah and visited by humiliation and wretchedness (was because they disbelieved in allah's revelations) they disbelieved in muhammad (pbuh) and in the qur'an (and slew the prophets wrongfully) without any right and for no crime whatsoever. (that) allah's wrath (was for their disobedience) on the sabbath (and transgression) slaying the prophets and declaring transgressions to be lawful.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : and when you said, ‘moses, we will not endure one sort of food, that is to say, manna and quails; pray to your lord for us, that he may bring forth for us, something, of (min here is explicative) what the earth produces — green herbs, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions’, he, moses, said, to them, ‘would you exchange what is better, more noble, that is, do you substitute this, with what is lowlier?’ (the hamza of a-tastabdilūna is for rebuke); they thus refused to change their mind and he [moses] supplicated to god, and he, exalted be he, said, ‘go down to a city, whichever city it may be; you shall have, there, what you demanded’ of vegetable produce; and abasement, submissiveness, and wretchedness, that is, the signs of poverty on account of their submissiveness and debasement that always accompany them, even if they be rich, in the same way that a coin never changes its mint; were cast upon them, and they incurred, ended up with god’s wrath; that, that is, that affliction and wrath, was because they used to disbelieve the signs of god and slay prophets, such as zachariah and john, without right, that is, unjustly; that was because they disobeyed, and they were transgressors, overstepping the bounds in disobedience (here the repetition [dhālik bi-mā ‘asaw wa-kānū ya‘tadūn] is for emphasis).
