The interpretation of His statement, Exalted is He: {and he expelled them from what they were in}
Abū Jaʿfar said: As for the interpretation of His statement, {and he expelled them}, it means: Satan expelled Adam and his wife, {from what they were in}, meaning from the comfortable life in Paradise and the vastness of its bliss in which Adam and his wife had been. We have already explained that God, majestic is His praise, only attributed their expulsion from Paradise to Satan—even though God is the One who expelled them—because their exit from it was due to a cause from Satan. Thus, that was attributed to him because he caused it (1), just as a speaker might say to a man from whom harm reached him until he moved because of him from a place he used to inhabit: "No one moved me from my place in which I was except you." He did not actually move him, but since his moving was due to a cause from him, it was permissible for him to attribute his moving to him.
The interpretation of His statement, Exalted is He: {And We said, "Descend, being enemies to one another"}
Abū Jaʿfar said: It is said, "So-and-so descended (habaṭa) to such-and-such land and such-and-such valley," when he settles in it (2), as the poet said:
I kept watching them, until when / the forelegs of the mounts descended with them into a valley of Rākis (3)
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