First Tafsir of the Quran:
"And the sky We built with hands; verily We outspread [it]" (Qur'an 51:47),
al-Tabari ascribes the figurative explanation (ta’wil) of with hands as meaning "with power (bi quwwa)" through five chains of transmission to Ibn ‘Abbas, who died 68 years after the Hijra, Mujahid who died 104 years after the Hijra, Qatada [ibn Da‘ama] who died 118 years after the Hijra, Mansur [ibn Zadhan al-Thaqafi] who died 131 years after the Hijra, and Sufyan al-Thawri who died 161 years after the Hijra (Jami‘ al-bayan, 27.7–8).
Beware of the Day the Shin of Allah will be bared, and the wicked will be asked to prostrate, but they will not be able to do so
(Qur'an 68:42),
al-Tabari says, "A number of the exegetes of the Sahaba and their students (tabi‘in) held that it [a day when shin shall be exposed] means that a dire matter (amrun shadid) shall be disclosed" (Jami‘ al-bayan, 29.38)—the shin’s association with direness being that it was customary for Arab warriors fighting in the desert to ready themselves to move fast and hard through the sand in the thick of the fight by lifting the hems of their garments above the shin.
Al-Tabari also relates from Muhammad ibn ‘Ubayd al-Muharibi, who relates from Ibn al-Mubarak, from Usama ibn Zayd, from ‘Ikrima, from Ibn ‘Abbas that shin in the above verse means "a day of war and direness (harbin wa shidda)" (ibid., 29.38).