Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “O family of Dawud, work in gratitude, and few of My servants are the grateful.”

And We said, O by obedience to Allah to Him for what He has bestowed upon you. The author (may Allah have mercy on him) informed us that is a clause in the position of the accusative for a deleted verb, the estimation being: We said, “O family of Dawud, work.” As for , it is in the accusative case due to the deleted yaa of the vocative, meaning: O family of Dawud. Here, the family of Dawud refers to his descendants and relatives, because Allah the Exalted bestowed great blessings upon this tribe, the tribe of Dawud, blessing their father and their son Sulayman. And his saying , the author informed us by estimating gratitude to Allah, that is the object for the sake of which, and that the object of is deleted, the estimation being: by obedience to Allah. Pay attention, meaning: work in obedience for the sake of what? Gratitude to Allah. It is also possible that is the object of the verb for , meaning: work in gratitude, and gratitude is obedience. However, in this interpretation, we are free from estimation. But in the first interpretation, it is necessary that we estimate the object of . The scholars defined gratitude as: performing the obedience of the Bestower in the heart, the tongue, and the limbs. As for the heart, it is that you believe that every blessing you have is from Allah. As for the tongue, it is that you praise Allah for the blessing, not mentioning the blessing to boast about it to people. As for the limbs, you perform the obedience of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) in what pertains to that blessing, or by obeying Him in general. The difference between these two: if we say that you perform the obedience of Allah in what pertains to this blessing, then if Allah bestows wealth upon you, your gratitude is zakah and spending, and the like. If you disobey Allah in other matters, it is not said that you will not perform gratitude for the wealth. But if we say that gratitude is performing the obedience of Allah in what pertains to this blessing and in others, then if a person is bestowed wealth and he fulfills its right completely, but he disobeys Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) in other matters, it is said that this person is not a grateful one. But we may say that gratitude is of two types:
Absolute gratitude: which is performing the obedience of the Bestower in what He bestowed upon him, in it and in others.
And specific gratitude: restricted to this specific blessing. So this person is a grateful one if he fulfills what is obligatory upon him regarding this specific blessing, but he does not deserve the description of being “the grateful” (shakur). The analogy for this is what was mentioned to us previously regarding repentance, that repentance is valid from a sin while persisting in another, but the repentant person does not deserve the term of absolute repentance.
Allah the Exalted said: The one who works in My obedience in gratitude for My blessings is a fronted predicate, and “the grateful” is a delayed subject, because the intended meaning is to inform that the grateful one is few, a grateful one... and the grateful one among My servants is few. And his saying is connected to what follows it, so when it was fronted, it became in the position of the accusative as a state (hal), meaning: the grateful one, in the state of being few among My servants. The reason for this is that most of the children of Adam, what are they? Not grateful, rather they are astray. So among the children of Adam, nine hundred and ninety-nine will be in the Fire and one in Paradise. Undoubtedly, if one is set against a hundred, it is few. And his saying , is the intended meaning of servitude here general or specific? General, encompassing the disbelievers and the believers.