قَالُوا ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا هِيَ إِنَّ الْبَقَرَ تَشَابَهَ عَلَيْنَا وَإِنَّا إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَمُهْتَدُونَ
Qaalud'u lanaa rabbaka yubayyil lanaa maa hiya innal baqara tashaabaha 'alaynaa wa innaa in shaaa'al laahu lamuhtadoon
They said, "Call upon your Lord for us, that he may make clear to us what she is — cows all look alike to us. And, God willing, we will be rightly guided."
Tashābaha, the verb for cows looking alike to them, shares its root with mutashābihāt, the term for the Qur'an's ambiguous verses in the third surah. The same word therefore covers a genuine difficulty in telling things apart and a claim of difficulty used to delay. The phrase about being guided, God willing, arrives at the third asking rather than the first.