Taʾwīl can illuminate the wisdom of an episode when it remains connected to the wording, context, and established facts. It becomes weak when an interpretation changes explicit events, legal implications, or clear vocabulary without sufficient grounds.
Drawing the lesson that collective arrogance can hinder acceptance of truth may be grounded in an account that depicts pride and rejection. Declaring every narrated event merely symbolic without textual support adds a much stronger and unproven claim.
Conclusion: keep three levels distinct: the narrative’s apparent statement, reliably established historical context, and wider moral reflections inferred from it.