"You remained" answered and corrected
لَبِثْتَ
labithta — you remained
In (2:259) the verb labitha appears three times within one exchange of question, answer and correction, shifting between second and first person as the speaker and addressee trade places.
The verse narrates a dialogue in which the root ل ب ث is used three times. After Allah causes the man to die for a hundred years and then raises him, the question comes as كَمْ لَبِثْتَ, "How long did you remain?" — a perfect verb in the second masculine singular addressed to the man. The man answers with لَبِثْتُ يَوْمًا أَوْ بَعْضَ يَوْمٍ, "I remained a day, or part of a day" — the same perfect verb now in the first person singular, with the speaker naming his own estimate. The exchange then closes with بَل لَّبِثْتَ مِا۟ئَةَ عَامٍ, "Rather, you remained a hundred years" — the second masculine singular form again, this time correcting the man's answer with the emphatic بَل and the exact span of time. The three forms trace the structure of the dialogue itself: the questioner's form (2MS), the respondent's form (1S), and the questioner's corrective form (2MS). The verb itself does not change meaning; what changes is the person of the suffix pronoun, marking who speaks and who is spoken about. The correction also sets the man's subjective estimate ("a day, or part of a day") against the stated figure of a hundred years, so the mirrored verb carries the gap between the man's perception of time and the duration given in the verse.
Where it occurs
- 2:259 كَمْ لَبِثْتَ opens the exchange as a question addressed to the man in the second person: "How long did you remain?"
- 2:259 لَبِثْتُ is the man's first-person answer with his own estimate: "I remained a day, or part of a day."
- 2:259 بَل لَّبِثْتَ returns to the second person to correct the answer with the stated duration: "Rather, you remained a hundred years."
All Qur'anic expressions