ضَرَبَ مُوسَىٰ عِيسَىٰ — subject first; both cases hidden, possible ambiguity.
أَكَلَ الْكَمْثَرَىٰ يَحْيَىٰ — object first; semantics disambiguate.
ضَرَبَ عَمْرًا زَيْدٌ — object first; visible case endings disambiguate.
Rule: Position alone is insufficient; use the grammatical and semantic indications available in the sentence.