أَنِ اعبُدُوا اللَّهَ وَاتَّقوهُ وَأَطيعونِ
Worship Allah and be wary of Him, and obey me.
EXEGESIS
Iʿbudū allāh (worship Allah) is given in the imperative plural. ʿIbādah is the worship of God, both in the literal sense as well as the obedience of a slave (ʿabd) to his master. And hence, the verse does not need to end with ‘and obey Allah’ because it is implied in the worship, and instead, obey me as a prophet of God, is given.
Ittaqūhu (be wary of Him) is also an imperative command. Taqwā is commonly understood as God-wariness and is one of the most oft-repeated prescriptions in the Quran and hadith. It asks of a human being to attain a state of constant consciousness of God at all times, and in every thought and action: indeed the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is the most God-wary among you (49:13).
Obey me (aṭīʿūni) is because one who obeys a messenger of God obeys God Himself. This is stated explicitly for Prophet Muhammad (s) (4:80) and, as a rule, God did not send messengers except that they should be obeyed (4:64). The people of Prophet Noah (a), however, disobey him and he laments this disobedience later in the surah: Noah said: ‘My Lord! They have disobeyed me’ (verse 21).
Prophet Jesus (a) also asked people: be wary of Allah and obey me (3:50, 43:63), and so did Prophet Hūd (a) (26:126), Prophet Ṣāliḥ (a) (26:144), Prophet Lot (a) (26:163), and Prophet Shuʿayb (a) (26:179) – all of whose communities, like Prophet Noah’s (a), were eventually destroyed for their rebellion (cf. 23:31-32).
EXPOSITION
Worship Allah is not suffixed with ‘only’ or ‘alone’, suggesting that they did not worship God at all, even besides their idols.
The three commandments in this verse summarise what the people lacked, for which the previous two verses mention a warning. Prophet Noah (a) was warning them to adopt these commands lest they perish. These three commandments – the worship of God, reverence for God, and following God’s messenger – are also mentioned as Prophet Noah’s (a) words in other verses (cf. 11:26, 23:23, 26:108), suggesting this is a summary of what Prophet Noah (a) preached. And in essence, they make up all of religion, covering all its fundamentals: tawḥīd (Worship Allah), maʿād (be wary of Him) – because only one who believes in the Final Day of accounting will remain God-wary and abstain from sin – and nubuwwah (obey me). Worship Allah is a call to faith (īmān), be wary of Him is rooted in spiritual purity and practice (ʿamal), and obey me is the attachment to divine leadership (wilāyah).
This analysis can be taken further, to note: the three commands are in reality aimed at one command, which is the embrace of God’s unicity (tawḥīd), the rest being simply extensions to it. Tawḥīd was always the primary message of every prophet sent and every scripture revealed. It is what sets a human soul on the right path to completing his journey back to its Creator. The greatest wrongdoing (ẓulm) is to associate anyone with God (31:13, 4:48, 4:116), for it removes the base for any spiritual success and salvation. See 71:24 for the root meaning of ẓulm.
God-wariness (taqwā) usually means ‘to keep away from sin’ since it acts as a shield that protects one from hellfire (66:6). The constant awareness of God’s presence not only helps one abstain from sin but also in the performance of the obligatory righteous actions the forsaking of which would be sinful.
[1] Razi, 3/649.