Our Daily Bread: From Divorce to Global Prosperity

In the Sura of Women, Gabriel instructs men on marital separation (divorce?):

And if a woman fears ill usage or desertion on the part of her husband, there is no blame on them, if they effect a reconciliation between them, … (4.127)

Gabriel acknowledges that a man cannot always treat all of his wives equally:

And ye will not have it at all in your power to treat your wives alike, even though you fain would do so; … (4.128)

Gabriel concludes that separation is sometimes perrmissable, and that though resources be divided, God can compensate them:

But if they separate, God can compensate both out of His abundance; … (4.129)

It does not seem entirely inappropriate for Bahá’u’lláh to use this passage in a mystical treatise, but it seems a bit of a stretch:

He burneth away the veils of want, and with inward and outward eye, perceiveth within and without all things the day of: “God will compensate each one out of His abundance.” (The Seven Valleys)

What is this about a “day”? Where did that come from? Is Bahá’u’lláh really quoting the Sura of Women, as all three publications explicitly indicate?

The invention persists in other compositions:

In this station he beholdeth himself established upon the throne of independence and the seat of exaltation. Then will he comprehend the meaning of that which hath been revealed of old concerning the day “whereon God shall enrich all through His abundance” (Gems of Divine Mysteries)

In yet another case, he goes further yet, employing the same invention to fully transform Gabriel’s assurances for irreconcilable marriages into a promise of global prosperity (albeit conditional on global justice) that sounds nothing like the doomsday of the Qur’án:

Were mankind to be adorned with [justice], they would behold the day-star of the utterance, ‘On that day God will satisfy everyone out of His abundance,’ shining resplendent above the horizon of the world. (Words of Paradise)

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