As for a shift of this kind from direct address to the third person, it serves to honour those being addressed, as in His words:

“But Allah has endeared faith to you and made it beautiful in your hearts, and has made disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience hateful to you. Those are the rightly guided. (7)” [al-Hujurāt 7]

And in His words:

“Until, when you are aboard ships and they sail with them in a favourable wind, and they rejoice in it…” [Yūnus 22]

His words “you are” encompass both believers and unbelievers. He therefore shifts to the third person, referring specifically to those who commit that blameworthy act.

Moreover, there is a clear and unmistakable distinction, evident from the language itself, between a question intended to deny the reality of something a person supposes, awaits, hopes for, and speaks of, and a question not intended for that purpose, but rather to threaten and frighten him with real and actual events, warning him against them. Examples of the first include His words:

“Does man think that he will be left without purpose? (36)” [al-Qiyāmah 36]

“Do they think that, through the wealth and children We provide them, (55) We are hastening good things to them?” [al-Mu’minūn 55–56]

“Or do they say, ‘A poet! We await for him the calamity of death’? (30) Say, ‘Wait, then; I too am waiting with you.’ (31) Do their minds command them to say this, or are they a transgressing people? (32) Or do they say, ‘He has fabricated it’? Rather, they do not believe. (33)” [al-Tūr 30–33]

And His words:

“Does every one of them hope to be admitted to a Garden of Bliss? (38)” [al-Ma‘ārij 38]

An equivalent formulation would be to say, “Are they waiting for Allah to come to them?” or “Do they hope that Allah will come to them in the shade of clouds?” and the like.