Ash-Shu'araa (The Poets)

22. “And is it a favour with which you reproach me that you have enslaved the Children of Israel?”

The reproaches and arrogance should be answered with harshness and severity.

To answer back the reproach of Pharaoh about rearing Moses (as) in his childhood, Moses (as) protested and decisively said:

“And is it a favour with which you reproach me that you have enslaved the Children of Israel?”

It is correct that the hand of events brought Moses (as) to the Palace of Pharaoh and he (as) was unwillingly brought up in his lap, and this shows the might of Allah, but one must see what the main factor of this affair was. Why was not Moses (as) brought up in his real home with his father and mother caring him?

Is not it true that Pharaoh held the Children of Israel captive and killed boys and let girls to live for being slave-girl?

This great oppression that Pharaoh committed caused Moses’ mother to put her son in a wooden box and placed it in Nile River in order to protect her child. It was Allah’s will that this small ship came near Pharaoh's palace.

Yes, it was Pharaoh’s great oppression that made Moses (as) indebted to this reproach and deprived him of his clean parental home and placed him in Pharaoh defiled palace.

With this commentary, the relation of Moses (as) with Pharaoh’s question gets clear.

Another possible commentary is that the purpose of Moses (as) was that his rearing by Pharaoh could be as a blessing compared with those tyranny and cruelties Pharaoh imposed on the Children of Israel, and it is understood that this blessing is a drop in the ocean. What blessing is it that Pharaoh points to, while he has done many oppressions and crimes beside it?

The third commentary that can be mentioned for the answer of Moses (as) to Pharaoh is that: if Moses (as) was brought up in Pharaoh’s palace and enjoyed various blessings, it must not be forgotten that the real builders of that palace were the slaves taken from the nation of Moses (as) and the producers of those blessings were the prisoners of the Children of Israel.

How did Pharaoh reproach Moses (as) for enjoying his (Moses’) own nation products?

These three above mentioned commentaries are not inconsistent with each other, but the first one seems clearer from some aspects.

By the way, the Qur’anic phrase /min-al-mursalin/ (used in the previous verse, refers to the fact that Moses (as) was not the only messenger of Allah, and before him there had come many prophets and Moses (as) was one of the divine prophets, and Pharaoh did forget all of these things.