(O Muhammad), you were then not on the western side1 when We bestowed this commandment (of Law), and you were not among its witnesses.2
Footnotes
[1]
“Western side”: Mount Sinai, which lies to the west of the Hijaz and on which the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) was given the Divine Law.
[2]
“The witnesses”: the seventy of the elders of Israel who had been summoned along with Moses for the covenant to follow the Law. See (Surah Al-Aaraf: Ayat 155).
[3]Qira’at: Ibn Kathir, Abu ʻAmr and Rouh read it as: “. . . then a settled one and a stored one .”
[4]
A grammatical shift from past tense to present tense.