لِتَسلُكوا مِنها سُبُلًا فِجاجًا
So that you may travel over its spacious ways.’’’
EXEGESIS
Subul (ways) is the plural of sabīl, and fijāj (spacious) is the plural of fajj, meaning a spacious or wide path. Subulan fijāja can also mean a wide path between mountains. In a very similar Quranic expression – fajjin ʿamīq (22:27) – the word fajj has been translated by others as a ravine or a mountain highway. Sabzawārī has confirmed this by saying, subul are the ways in the deserts and fijāj are in the mountains, and, according to Rāghib also, fajj, besides being a wide path, is also a valley (wādī) that cuts through two mountains.
Subulan fijāja in this verse is also given in reverse as fijājan subula in 21:31, meaning, instead of spacious ways, spaciousness or broadness (fijājan) that form ways (subula), just like the verse: He who made the earth for you a cradle and in it threaded for you ways (subula) (20:53).
Of the many bounties of God is how He made the earth: neither too coarse nor too smooth and slippery. He made it easy to traverse through and even made it easy for man to cut through it and create paths and ways (subul) of transportation for himself.
Prophet Noah (a) seeks to make his people realise how they are only able to exploit the earth so easily because it is so conducive to traverse upon, whether for farming, seeking sustenance, grazing animals, travel, building abodes, or extracting minerals from. Of God’s sign to mankind is how the vast, rich earth has been made subservient to man and left completely at his disposal, despite man’s inherently weak physical nature.
EXPOSITION
Most verses that relate the bounties of God, such as His creating the earth, the mountains, or the heavens for the benefit of man, do not always explain the reason or benefit. This verse is an example of where it does. The previous verse mentions the earth as having been created expansive for man, and one of the reasons is explained here: So that you may travel over its spacious ways.
And in being able to traverse through the earth, not only does man access the earth’s many resources and provide for his needs, but he is also able to increase in knowledge and find guidance. Therefore, just as the sun and the moon allude to the light of guidance from God (see the Exposition for verse 16), the spacious ways also indicate other means of guidance that God provides: He who made the earth a cradle for you and made in it ways (subul) for you, so that you may be guided (43:10).
[1] Mizan, 20/33.
[2] Arberry, 22:27; Pickthall, 22:27.
[3] Yusufali, 22:27.
[4] Sabzawari, 7/241.
[5] Raghib, f-j-j.