Endure what they say and glorify
فَٱصْبِرْ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ وَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ ٱلشَّمْسِ وَقَبْلَ غُرُوبِهَا
fa-ṣbir ʿalā mā yaqūlūna wa-sabbiḥ bi-ḥamdi rabbika qabla ṭulūʿi l-shamsi wa-qabla ghurūbihā — So endure what they say, and glorify with the praise of your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting
The two verses share an identical opening command to endure hostile speech and to glorify at the sun's rising and setting; 20:130 then expands the times of glorification and states a purpose, while 50:39 stops at the setting and hands the night glorification to the following verse.
The opening of (20:130) and (50:39) is word-for-word identical through 'and before' (وَقَبْلَ), with one grammatical difference in the noun that follows: 20:130 has the suffixed noun غروبها ('its setting', referring back to 'the sun'), while 50:39 has the definite noun ٱلْغُرُوب ('the setting') without the pronoun. After this shared core the two verses diverge sharply. In (20:130) the command continues within the same verse: 'and in portions of the night — so glorify — and at the edges of the day', adding a resumptive imperative فَسَبِّحْ and two further time spans, and it closes with a stated purpose, 'so that you may be content' (لَعَلَّكَ تَرْضَىٰ). The verse thus gathers all the times of glorification into one sentence and attaches an outcome for the addressee. In (50:39) the command ends at 'the setting'; the night glorification appears only in the next verse, (50:40), as 'And during the night, then glorify Him', addressed to Him with a pronoun (فَسَبِّحْهُ) rather than 'with the praise of your Lord'. The contexts also differ in what the endurance answers: (20:130) sits between a statement about a word gone ahead from the Lord and a specified term (20:129) and a prohibition against stretching the eyes toward others' enjoyments (20:131), while (50:39) follows the declaration that creation took six days with no fatigue touching Us (50:38).
Where it occurs
- 20:130 Opens with the shared command, then adds night portions and the day's edges with a resumptive imperative, and ends with the purpose 'so that you may be content'.
- 50:39 Gives only the shared command up to 'the setting', leaving night glorification to the following verse (50:40).
All Qur'anic expressions