لَو نَشاءُ جَعَلناهُ أُجاجًا فَلَولا تَشكُرونَ

If We wish We can make it bitter. Then why do you not give thanks?

EXEGESIS

Ujāj means extremely salty or bitter water, like seawater.^{‎[1]Ayn; Lisan, under a-j-j.}

Verse 70 is similar to verse 65, except that it is missing the letter lām (translated as surely in verse 65). This suggests a heightened emphasis on farming relative to rain, and is further confirmed by verses 66 and 67, which have no equivalent when it comes to the case of rain. A possible explanation for this is that salty or bitter waters are already prevalent on earth, and therefore the claim that If We wish We can make it bitter does not need much emphasis. This is unlike the case of turning crops into chaff, which might sound less possible to the reader as it does not occur as frequently.^{‎[2]Alusi, 14/148, quoted from Ibn al-Athīr.}

It has been suggested that the use of the conditional clause law (if) in verses 65 and 70 indicates that God does not turn the crops to chaff, and does not make the rain salty, which is an act of His mercy, otherwise He could very well do so.^{‎[3]Qaraati, 9/437.}

EXPOSITION

If We wish We can make it bitter: this is one example of how God can take away His mercy and turn it into a punishment. He can also turn the rain into a flood as He did with the tribes of Prophet Noah (a) and Sheba (54:11-12, 34:16). He can afflict the people with droughts as He did with Pharaoh and his people (7:130). He can send clouds not as harbingers of His mercy, but as clouds that come with hurricanes and cold, barren winds, as He did with ʿĀd (46:24-25, 51:41-42). He can even send rains of stones from the sky as He did with Prophet Lot’s (a) tribe (11:82, 15:74). God’s punishment upon the people of Sheba who were ungrateful to God’s bounties should be a lesson for all of us: There was certainly a sign for Sheba in their habitation: two gardens, to the right and to the left. ‘Eat of the provision of your Lord and give Him thanks: a good land and an all-forgiving Lord!’ But they disregarded [the path of Allah], so We unleashed upon them a violent flood and replaced their two gardens with two gardens bearing bitter fruit, tamarisk, and sparse lote trees. We requited them with that for their ingratitude. Do We requite [so] anyone except ingrates? (34:15-17). Another sign of God’s mercy and power is the way the earth can store and retain rainwater: We sent down water from the sky in a measured manner, and We lodged it within the ground, and We are indeed able to take it away (23:18); And We send the fertilising winds and send down water from the sky providing it for you to drink, and you are not maintainers of its resources (15:22).

INSIGHTS FROM HADITH

1. In his famous sermon on verses 102:1-2, Imam Ali (a) describes an illness that leads to one’s death as follows: ‘He then took recourse to what the physicians had prescribed for him – like alleviating the heat by cold and stimulating the cold by hot. But the cold remedies only aggravated his heat, and the hot solutions only intensified his cold. He did not seek to balance any of his natural temperaments except that his ailment increased.’^{‎[4]Nahj, sermon 221.}

Note: This is an extension on what is discussed in these verses, whereby the Imam presents a similar example and application that provides further insight on these verses. Rūmī has best depicted this by his famous lines early on in his Mathnawī:

If it is the time for His decree and will,

The doctors will lose their knowledge and skill.

The remedies will fail to have their effect,

They’ll only cause disease and defect.

The oil of almond removes the dryness;

But this time by His decree, it made it progress!

Usually by oxymel, bile is reduced;

But this time by His decree, it was produced.^{‎[5]Rūmī, Mathnawī, vol. 1, lines 53-54.}

2. Imam al-Bāqir (a) narrated that when the Prophet would drink water, he used to thank God by the following formula: ‘All praise belongs to Allah, who provided us with a sweet and potable water by His mercy, and did not make it salty and bitter because of our sins.’^{‎[6]Suyuti, 1/161.}

Note: This is an example of giving thanks: Then why do you not give thanks? It is with persisting in such minute details that the remembrance of God becomes a second nature for an individual and he becomes a follower of the verse, Remember Me, and I will remember you, and thank Me, and do not be ungrateful to Me (2:152).

[1] Ayn; Lisan, under a-j-j.
[2] Alusi, 14/148, quoted from Ibn al-Athīr.
[3] Qaraati, 9/437.
[4] Nahj, sermon 221.
[5] Rūmī, Mathnawī, vol. 1, lines 53-54.
[6] Suyuti, 1/161.