“Then, when the time of the latter promise came”: that is, the final instance of your corruption. This was their attempt to kill Jesus when he was raised up, and their killing of John, son of Zechariah, peace be upon them both. So Allah set against them the Persians and the Romans—Khardush and Titus—until they killed them, enslaved them, and expelled them from their homes. This is the meaning of His saying, “to disgrace you”: that is, so that sorrow would appear on your faces. The disgrace of the face consists in the infliction of distress and grief.

Al-Kisai—and Yaqub (1)—recited it with the letter n and the hamzah in the accusative, in the majestic plural, as in His saying, “We decreed” and “We sent.” Ibn Amir, Hamzah, and Abu Bakr recited it with the letter y (2) and the hamzah in the accusative, in the singular (3): that is, “so that Allah may disgrace you.” It was also said: “so that the promise may disgrace you.”

The remaining reciters read it with the letter y and the hamzah in the nominative, in the plural: that is, so that the servants endowed with great might may disgrace you. “And that they may enter the Sanctuary”: meaning Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, “as they entered it the first time, and that they may utterly destroy”: that is, ruin, “whatever they overcame”—whatever of your lands they gained mastery over—“with utter destruction.”