﴿ وَٱلْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَٰهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَٱلْعُرْجُونِ ٱلْقَدِيمِ ﴾

“and [in] the moon, for which We have determined phases [which it must traverse] till it becomes like an old date-stalk, dried-up and curved:”

And the moon — read wa’l-qamaru in the nominative or wa’l-qamara in the accusative; and it may be in the accusative because of a following verb that governs it We have determined it with respect to its course to run in phases — twenty eight phases in twenty eight nights of every month; it becomes concealed for two nights when the month has thirty days and for one night when it has twenty nine days — until it returns during its final phase seeming to the human eye like an aged palm-bough in other words like the stalk with a date cluster when it ages becoming delicate arched and yellowish.