58 JUDAISM AND
that their iniquity may be increased," l still the second view is to be found among the Arabians also, e.g., Elpherar in his comments on Quran XII. 42 2 says : " It is said that the righteous are punished and tried, in order that the day of resurrection may be perfect in light and power, as the contumacy o the righteous has been already expiated." Muhammad naturally avoided specifying any time at which the judgment should take place, though he was much pressed to do so. He excused himself with the Jewish saying that with Gr'od a thousand years are as one day, 3 which was divested of its poetic adornment and taken by the Eabbis in a purely literal sense. 4 Muhammad says 5 ; " Verily one day with thy Lord is as a thousand years of those which ye compute" j and again 6 : "On the day whose length shall be a thousand years of those which ye compute." As has been already shown, with the establishment of
1 Compare Sura IX. 55, 86, XXXI. 23. , In IX. 55, 86, the words C.SJJT (Sjfca^) ^ are evidently to be connected with Iij3j\ and not
with what immediately precedes. Thus Elpherar says on IX. 55 : ^stiS ^\ o * Sjbui^ AH\^\ JU
Mujahid and Ketada say that this verse has been transposed, it should run : " Let not therefore their riches or their children in this world cause thee to marvel. Verily God infcendeth only 'to punish them by these things in that world. "
3 Psalm, xc. 4s,
- Sanhedrin 96. 2. See also Preface to Ben Ezra's Commentary on the
Pentateuch where he opposes this view.
5 Sura XXII. 46. 6 SuraXXXI1.4.
