When she heard about their gossip,1 she invited them and set a banquet for them. She gave each one a knife, then said ˹to Joseph˺, “Come out before them.” When they saw him, they were so stunned ˹by his beauty˺ that they cut their hands,2 and exclaimed, “Good God! This cannot be human; this must be a noble angel!”
Explanation:
In this exclamation of divine transcendence, the original verb contains a second alif, as in the second reading. This is removed in the majority reading, and both have the same meaning [Makki]. NB: the readings are based on the same skeletal form, and Abū ʿAmr would pronounce this word the same as the others if stopping upon it: ḥāsh.