31. As already mentioned in Surah TaHa (verse 59), the day fixed for the purpose was the day of the national festivities of the Egyptians so that large crowds of people coming to the festivals from every part of the country should also witness the grand contest which was to be held in the broad daylight so that the spectators could see the performances clearly.
32. That is, besides proclamation heralds were sent to urge the people to come and see the contest. It appears that the news of the miracle shown by Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) before the packed court had reached the common people also, and Pharaoh fearing that the people at large might be influenced, wanted that they should come together in large numbers so that they could see for themselves that turning a staff into a snake had nothing extraordinary in it because such a trick could be performed by every common magician of their own country as well.
33. This sentence confirms the idea that those who had witnessed the miracle of Moses (peace be upon him) in the royal court and those who had heard of it reliably outside were losing faith in their ancestral religion, and now the strength of their faith depended on this that their own magicians also should give a performance similar to that of Moses (peace be upon him). That is why Pharaoh and his chiefs themselves regarded this contest as a decisive one, and their heralds were busy moving about in the land, impressing on the people that if the magicians won the day, they would yet be secured against the risk of being won over to Moses’ (peace be upon him) religion, otherwise there was every possibility of their creed being exposed and abandoned forever.
34. Such was the mentality of the supporters of the polytheistic creed of the land, whose only ambition was to win rewards from the king if they won the day.
35. This was then the highest honor that the king could confer on those who served the creed best. Thus, at the very outset, Pharaoh and his magicians manifested by their conduct the great moral distinction that exists between a Prophet and a magician. On the one side, there stood that embodiment of courage and confidence, who in spite of belonging to the suppressed community of the Israelites and having remained to hiding for ten long years on account of a charge of murder, had suddenly appeared in Pharaoh’s court to proclaim fearlessly that he had been sent by the Lord of all Creation and demanded release of the Israelites.
He did not even feel the least hesitation in starting a discussion face to face with Pharaoh not caring in the least for his threats. On the other side, there were the wretched magicians wholly lacking in moral fiber, who had been summoned by Pharaoh himself to help secure the ancestral religion, and yet they were begging for rewards in return for the services. And when they are told that they will not only be given rewards but will also be included among the royal courtiers, they feel greatly overjoyed. These two types of characters clearly bring out the difference between the grand personality of a Prophet and that of a mere magician. Unless a man loses all senses of modesty and decency, he cannot have the audacity to call a Prophet a magician.
36. As soon as they cast down their cords and staffs, these started moving like so many snakes towards Moses. This has been described in greater detail at other places in the Quran. According to (Surah Al-Araf, Ayat 116): When they threw down their devices, they bewitched the eyes of the people and terrified their hearts: for they had indeed produced a great magic. And according to (Surah TaHa, Ayats 66, 67): Suddenly it so appeared to Moses that their cords and staffs were running about by the power of their magic, and Moses’ heart was filled with fear.
37. This was not merely an acknowledgment of their defeat at the hands of Moses (peace be upon him) as though he was a greater magician, but their falling prostrate in submission to Allah, Lord of the universe, was an open declaration before thousands of Egyptians that what Moses (peace be upon him) had brought about was no magic at all, but a manifestation of the powers of Allah, Almighty.
38. This only shows the extreme obstinacy and obduracy of Pharaoh, who even after witnessing a clear miracle and the testimony of the magicians on it, was still insisting that it was magic. But according to (Surah Al-Aaraf, Ayat 123), Pharaoh said: Indeed it was a plot you conspired in the capital to deprive the rightful owners of their power. Thus he tried to make the people believe that the magicians had yielded to Moses (peace be upon him) not because of the miracle but due to a conspiracy with Moses (peace be upon him) before they entered the contest, so that they might seize political power and enjoy its fruits together.
39. This horrible threat was held out by Pharaoh to justify his thinking that the magicians had entered a conspiracy with Moses (peace be upon him). He thought that the magicians, in order to save their lives, would confess the plot and thus the effect produced by their falling prostrate and believing in Moses (peace be upon him) in front of thousands of spectators would be gone.
40. That is, we have to return to our Lord in any case. If you kill us now, we shall present ourselves before Him just today, and we have nothing to worry about this. We rather expect that we shall be forgiven our sins and errors because out of this entire gathering we were the first to believe as soon as reality became known to us.
This reply of the magicians made two things absolutely clear to the people who had been gathered together by Pharaoh heralds.
First, that Pharaoh was a dishonest obdurate and deceitful person. When he saw that Moses had come out successful in the contest which he himself had arranged to be decisive, he concocted a plot and forced the magicians to confess it by coercion and threats. Had there been any truth in it, the magicians would not have readily offered to have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides and get crucified. The fact that the magicians remained steadfast and firm in their belief, even in the face of such a horrible threat, proves that the accusation of plotting a conspiracy against Pharaoh was baseless. The fact was that the magicians being experts in their art had realized that what Moses (peace be upon him) had displayed was no magic, but surely a manifestation of the powers of Allah, Lord of the universe.
Secondly, thousands of the people who had gathered together from all corners of the land had themselves witnessed the great moral change that had occurred in the magicians as soon as they professed belief in the Lord of the universe. The same magicians who had been summoned to strengthen and secure the ancestral creed by means of their magic and who, a minute before, were humbly begging Pharaoh for rewards had now become so bold and ennobled spiritually that they would not take any notice of Pharaoh’s powers and his threats and were even prepared to face death and extreme physical torture for the sake of their faith. Thus psychologically there could not be a better occasion to expose the polytheistic creed of the Egyptians in their own eyes and help impress the truth of Moses’ (peace be upon him) religion in the minds of the people.