This verse shows that the previous explanations still have not brought them to action. At the beginning, the command was simple: slaughter a cow. Then they asked: what is it? The answer came: neither old and worn out, nor young and immature, but middle-aged between the two. Then they asked about color. The answer came: yellow, bright, bringing gladness to those who look. Now, after all these explanations, they return again to the same general question: “What is it?” (ma hiya).

This repetition carries much meaning. When the heart is not ready to carry out the command, the mind, even after explanation, returns again to the beginning. The age was stated, the color was stated, the signs were made clear, but they still ask: what is it? So the problem is not only a lack of information. Here, the confusion is less a confusion of knowing and more a confusion made from inward resistance and postponing action.

The same expression is repeated again: “Call upon your Lord and Nurturing Master for us” (ud'u lana rabbaka). They still do not say: our Lord and Nurturing Master. Again they send Musa ahead: you ask, you inquire, you make it clear for us. This language shows distance. They are facing the command of The God, but they still do not take it as a direct matter between themselves and their own Lord and Nurturing Master.

Then they state their excuse like this: “Indeed, the cows have become confusing and similar to us” (inna the cows al-baqar have become confusing and similar tashabaha upon us). On the surface, this is a simple statement: the cows have become similar, and we do not know which one to choose. But within the movement of the story, this confusion is to a large degree made by themselves. At the beginning, the path was open. If they had acted then, all this mistake and narrowness would not have appeared. They narrowed the circle of choice with their own questions, then complained about the narrowness of that same circle.

This behavior is not only about a past people. The human being sometimes makes the path complicated himself, then says: the path has become confusing for me. He weighs down a clear command with conditions, anxieties, obsessive concerns, and delays, then makes that very heaviness the proof of his inability. With this story, the Qur'an uncovers this illness: a question that should bring the human being closer to action can, if it rises from unwillingness, move action farther away.

Then they say: “And indeed, if The God wills, we will surely be guided” (wa-inna in sha'a The God Allah, surely guided la-muhtadun). This sentence is very sensitive. “If The God wills” (in sha'a The God Allah) is, in its origin, the language of reverent courtesy and faith. A believer knows that no path, no understanding, and no success is obtained outside the will of The God. But a correct phrase does not always mean the same thing in every mouth. Sometimes a true statement, in the wrong place, becomes a cover for escaping responsibility.

In this context, after several stages of delay, after the repeated “your Lord and Nurturing Master” (rabbaka), and after questions that each time pushed action back, “if The God wills” does not only smell of trust; it also smells of placing the burden of the matter on the will of The God. It is as if they are saying: if The God wills, we will find the way; and if we do not find it, then He did not will it. Yet The God had already commanded, and the path of obedience had been opened from the beginning.

The difference between trust and delay is right here. Trust means the human being walks the clear path and entrusts the outcome to The God. Delay means the human being postpones the clear path and makes the name of The God a shield for his own unwillingness. In trust, the name of The God makes the human being calmer and purer in action. In delay, the same name comes onto the tongue, but action is pushed back.

Guidance in this verse, in the nearest meaning, means finding the way to that cow: recognizing the specific one that must be slaughtered. But because guidance is a deep Qur'anic word, this sentence also gains a wider meaning. They have not only lost the cow; they have also lost the path of obedience. The more they ask, if the heart does not give itself to action, the farther they move from the destination.

The next verse makes this tone clearer: “So they slaughtered it, though they were hardly going to do it” (fa-dhabahuha wa-ma kadu yaf'alun). This sentence shows that they finally acted, but not with ease and willingness. So their speech in verse 70 should not be read too simply or as pure-hearted speech. The Qur'an itself shows that resistance remained alive in the heart of the matter until the last moment.

This verse is also a mirror for us today. Sometimes a person says: if The God wills, I will be guided; if The God wills, I will be corrected; if The God wills, I will act. If this speech rises from humility and action, it is beautiful. But if it takes the place of decision, effort, and responsibility, it becomes dangerous. The God shows the way, but the human being must not put his own unwillingness on the account of the will of The God.

The lesson of the verse is this: the will of The God must not be made an excuse for one's own delay. If a path has been made clear, one must move toward action. A question for understanding is good, but when repeated questions create a confusion that was not there at the beginning, the human being should fear that perhaps the issue is no longer understanding; it is escape from responsibility.

Sometimes the human being darkens the path with his own hands, then asks The God to make it clear; while first he must come out of the darknesses he himself has made.

• Al-Baqarah 2:67— The first command concerning slaughtering the cow, which began simple and open.
• Al-Baqarah 2:68— The first question “what is it?” and the first narrowing of the range of choice.
• Al-Baqarah 2:69— The question about the color of the cow and the command becoming more limited to a yellow and bright cow.
• Al-Baqarah 2:71— Carrying out the command after much delay: “So they slaughtered it, though they were hardly going to do it.”
• Al-Ma'idah 5:101— The prohibition of questions that, if disclosed, would cause hardship; a very close witness to the logic of the cow story.
• Al-Ma'idah 5:102— The reminder of a people who asked such questions before and then rejected them; a warning about escape-questions.
• Al-Kahf 18:23-24— The teaching of saying “if The God wills” in its proper place; useful for understanding the difference between faithful adab and misuse of the language of will.
• As-Saffat 37:102— “Do what you are commanded”; an example of surrender before the command of The God, in contrast with delay and repeated questioning in the cow story.
• Al-Baqarah 2:93— The love of the calf being made to drink into the hearts; useful for understanding the possible background of the cow story against sanctified attachments.
• Ta-Ha 20:85-97— The story of the Samiri and the calf; the wider background for understanding the sensitivity of the cow story.