through the abundance of his wrongdoing, the length of his disobedience to Him, the abundance of the enticer's forbearance, and the length of His pardon of him to the utmost limit (1), then he is undoubtedly deceiving himself, and not the one whom his inner self led him to believe he was deceiving. Therefore, God, Exalted is His praise, negated that the hypocrite had deceived anyone other than himself, since the attribute was as we described.

And since the matter is as we have described regarding the hypocrite's seeking to deceive his Lord and the believers, and that his attempt to deceive leads to no actual deception except against himself alone, due to the destruction and peril into which he plunges himself by his action — then it is obligatory that the correct reading be: {And they deceive not except themselves} rather than {and they seek to deceive}, because the word mukhādiʿ does not necessitate the affirmation of deception as an established reality, whereas the word khādiʿ does necessitate the affirmation of deception as an established reality. There is no doubt that the hypocrite has brought God's deception upon himself through his engaging in deceiving his Lord, His Messenger, and the believers by his hypocrisy; therefore, the reading of the one who read {And they deceive not except themselves} is proven to be the correct one.

Furthermore, among the proofs that the reading of the one who read {And they deceive not} is preferable in correctness over the reading of the one who read {and they seek to deceive} is that God, Exalted is His praise, informed about them at the beginning of the verse that they seek to deceive God and the believers, so it is impossible that He would negate from them that which He had already affirmed they had done, for that would be a contradiction in meaning, and such is impermissible from God, Exalted and Majestic.

The commentary on the interpretation of the statement of God, Exalted is His praise: ﴿And they perceive not (9)﴾

He means by His statement, Exalted is His praise, "and they perceive not": and they do not know. It is said: "So-and-so did not perceive this matter", and "he does not perceive it", when he does not know and does not realize. The poet said: