Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And We placed upon them humiliation and poverty”

He said: “Struck upon them” — now there is a shift here — to the end of it. Then he said: The speech is now a new beginning, a report from Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) concerning the Children of Israel that humiliation and poverty were struck upon them. This refers to courage; they are humiliated and do not confront an enemy. And Allah the Exalted said: “And poverty” — they are poor, which returns to the matter of poverty. So they have no courage and they have no wealth. There is no nobility in wealth and no nobility in the self. Courage is a kind of nobility; by what? By the self. A person is generous with his self to exalt the word of Allah. And nobility is generosity with wealth. They, may Allah protect us from them, did not attain this or that, but rather the opposite: humiliation was struck upon them, so they have no courage, and poverty, so they have no generosity. For this reason, there is no nation poorer than the Jews, and poorer in heart, not in wealth. Wealth is abundant, but their hearts are poor. And this necessitated that wealth increases among them, because they are still like the fire in dry wood, consuming, consuming. Yes? They were described with this description: “Struck upon them.” And his saying: This is from the category of what they call implied metaphor (istia'arah makiyyah), if it is correct for us to say that it is figurative speech. It is as if He made them in the position of the coin, the piece of metal upon which the stamp is struck. So it is as if this humiliation and poverty became a stamp upon them that does not leave them, just as the stamp does not leave the coin. Because gold and silver, the dinar and the dirham, are stamped with the seal. For this reason, it is said “the dirham was struck” and “the dinar was struck,” meaning it was struck with the stamp that seals it. And every state seals its currency with what is appropriate to its policy. So this humiliation, may Allah protect us from them, is struck upon them, and likewise the poverty.