“Perhaps your Lord will have mercy upon you. But if you return, We will return. And We have made Hell a prison for the disbelievers. Indeed, this Quran guides to that which is most upright and gives glad tidings to the believers who do righteous deeds that they will have a great reward, and that for those who do not believe in the Hereafter, We have prepared a painful punishment.”

“Perhaps your Lord,” O Children of Israel, “will have mercy upon you” after taking vengeance upon you, and will restore power to you. “But if you return, We will return”: that is, if you return to disobedience, We will return to punishment. Qatadah said: They did return, so Allah sent Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, against them; thus they pay the jizyah tax directly, in a state of submission.

“And We have made Hell a prison for the disbelievers”: that is, a jail and place of confinement, from ḥaṣr, meaning imprisonment.

Al-Hasan said: “A resting place,” meaning a bed. He understood it in the sense of a mat that is spread out and laid down. “Indeed, this Quran guides to that which is most upright”: that is, to the way that is most correct. It was also said: to the statement that is most just—namely, the testimony that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. “And gives glad tidings”—that is, the Quran gives glad tidings—“to the believers who do righteous deeds that they will have,” meaning, that they shall have, “a great reward,” which is Paradise. “And that for those who do not believe in the Hereafter, We have prepared a painful punishment”: this is the Fire.