Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “...the means of the heavens, so I will look upon the God of Musa, and I am sure he is a liar. And thus was made attractive to Pharaoh the evil of his deed, and he was turned away from the path. And what Pharaoh plotted was only in ruin.”

He said: “Asbab” is the plural of “sabab,” which is everything that leads to the intended goal; thus, the cause is the means, and the caused is the end. What are the causes here? He clarified them by saying: “The causes of the heavens.” “The causes of the heavens” is in the position of an explanatory apposition (‘atf bayan) to what came before it, clarifying the ambiguity present in “causes.”
If someone were to ask: Why was the speech not made clear from the beginning of the address? It is said: “Perhaps I will reach the causes of the heavens.”
We say: Ambiguity first, followed by detail and clarification second, has a greater impact on the heart. Because when something comes in an ambiguous form and is then clarified, the clarification lands when the heart is eager to know the ambiguous thing. That is to say, if the speech had been clear from the start, it would have been easy for the hearts. But when it comes first in an ambiguous form, the heart becomes eager to know the ambiguous thing, and then the clarification comes while the heart is ready to accept it and eager to reach it.