صوب

Core meaning

To reach the mark: to come and touch one's aim or object, whether a blow, a misfortune, a good or the rain.

Uses

1. أَصَابَ, يُصِيبُ → "to strike", "to betide" : what comes upon someone and touches him, for good or ill.

   • «قُل لَّن يُصِيبَنَآ إِلَّا مَا كَتَبَ ٱللَّهُ لَنَا» — "Nothing will strike us except what God has decreed for us" (9:51)
   • «فَأَصَابَهُۥ وَابِلٌۭ» — "a torrential rain strikes it" (2:264)
   • «وَإِن تُصِبْهُمْ سَيِّئَةٌۭ» — "and if evil strikes them" (7:131)
   • «قَدْ أَصَبْتُم مِّثْلَيْهَا» — "after you had caused double that to strike" (3:165)
   • Written exception: in 49:6, أَن تُصِيبُوا۟ قَوْمًۢا is rendered "lest you set upon a people": the subject is the one who deals the blow.

2. مُصِيبَة → "misfortune", "calamity" : what strikes and wounds.

   • «إِذَآ أَصَٰبَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌۭ» — "when misfortune strikes them" (2:156)
   • «مَآ أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ ٱللَّهِ» — "No calamity strikes except by the permission of God" (64:11)

3. حَيْثُ أَصَابَ → "wherever he aimed" : the point one means to reach.

   • «حَيْثُ أَصَابَ» — "wherever he aimed" (38:36)

4. صَيِّب → "torrential rain" : the rain that falls upon the earth.

   • «أَوْ كَصَيِّبٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ» — "Or like a torrential rain from the sky" (2:19)

5. صَوَاب → "what is right" : the word that touches the true.

   • «وَقَالَ صَوَابًۭا» — "and who will say what is right" (78:38)

Evidence from the text

The verb does not choose between good and evil: the same form names the good and the evil that betide (4:78-79), God's favour (4:73), the rain He makes fall on whom He wills (30:48). The text says it again in 7:131, and the verb returns twice in Shu'ayb's warning: "cause what struck the people of Nuh, or the people of Hud, or the people of Salih, to strike you" (11:89). What defines it is the aim reached: Sulayman's wind goes "wherever he aimed" (38:36), and the right word is the one that touches the true (78:38).

Misfortune is never chance: "Nothing will strike us except what God has decreed for us" (9:51); it is "in a register" (57:22), and it often answers what hands have prepared (4:62, 28:47, 42:30).

Distinctions

• مسس — to touch: contact, whereas أَصَابَ names the aim reached

See also

وبل (the torrential rain)