Surah Al-Baqarah 2:47
سُورَةُ البَقَرَةِ · Medinan · Verse 47 of 286
يَٰبَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ ٱذْكُرُوا۟ نِعْمَتِىَ ٱلَّتِىٓ أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَأَنِّى فَضَّلْتُكُمْ عَلَى ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Translation
Children of Israel, remember how I blessed you and favoured you over other people.
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'O Children of Israel, remember My favour which I bestowed upon you, and that I preferred you over the worlds [of your time].' al-Saadi and Ibn Kathir note the reminder of a special favour, a people raised, chosen, and given prophets and scripture in their era, invoked precisely because privilege carries responsibility, and forgetting the favour led to squandering it. Ask yourself: being favoured is not a licence but a trust, and the repeated call to 'remember' warns how easily the favoured forget the Giver and grow entitled. It turns my gaze to my own favours, whatever I've been given more of than others: knowledge, guidance, opportunity, faith itself. The greater the gift, the greater the accountability for it. Am I holding my particular blessings as a trust that obligates me, or, like the people repeatedly reminded here, taking them as my due and forgetting the One who bestowed them?
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Baqarah 2:47 is discussed in 2 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
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