Overall meaning : Allah, Exalted and Sublime be He, recounts part of the story of Moses, peace be upon him, saying: Mention to the people, Muhammad, the time when your Lord spoke to Moses and commanded him to go to the unjust, wicked people—the people of Pharaoh—and to say to them, ‘Will you not fear Allah and desist from oppressing His servants?!’
‘Lord,’ Moses said, ‘I fear that Pharaoh and his people will deny me, that my breast will tighten for their rejecting me, and that my tongue will be so tied that I will not be able to address Pharaoh properly or make Your message clear to him; so send my brother Aaron as a messenger along with me to help me with this task. Besides, they have a charge of crime against me for having killed a man amongst them, so I fear that they will kill me in retaliation.’
‘By no means will they kill you,’ Allah reassuringly said to Moses. ‘Therefore, go, you and your brother, to them with Our miraculous signs. I am with you as a supporter and protector, and I will be listening to what passes between you and them. Go, both of you, to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘We are messengers to you from the Lord of the all the worlds to tell you to let the Children of Israel go with us to the Holy Land to worship Allah alone.’
Allah Almighty then relates the dialogue that took place between Moses and Pharaoh, saying: Pharaoh said to Moses, ‘Did we not bring you up among us as a child, and did you not stay in our midst for many years? Then you killed a man amongst us and were thus very ungrateful.’
Moses said, ‘I killed him by accident, and I did that at a time I was still ignorant, not having received divine revelation yet; and so I fled from you because I feared you would kill me. Then my Lord granted me knowledge and sound judgement and sent me as a messenger to you. And you remind me of the favour you bestowed on me by enslaving my people, the Israelites, and not me! This is by no means a favour! What sort of favour is this that you are reminding me of, then?!’