because the word for “locusts” is grammatically singular, just as in His saying: “like scattered moths” (al-Qari'ah 4). What is meant is that they will emerge in terror, with no direction toward which any one of them is heading, like locusts, which have no single direction and swarm over one another.

“Hastening toward the Caller, the disbelievers will say, ‘This is a difficult Day.’ Before them, the people of Noah denied; they denied Our servant and said, ‘He is mad,’ and he was rebuked. So he called upon his Lord, ‘I am overwhelmed, so grant me victory.’ Thereupon We opened the gates of heaven with pouring rain, and caused the earth to burst forth with springs, so the waters met for a matter already decreed. And We carried him upon a vessel of planks and nails.” (8–13)

“Hastening”: rushing forward and approaching. “Toward the Caller”: toward the voice of Israfil. “The disbelievers will say, ‘This is a difficult Day’”: a harsh and severe Day.

His saying, exalted is He, “Before them”—that is, before the people of Mecca—“the people of Noah denied; they denied Our servant,” Noah, “and said, ‘He is mad,’ and he was rebuked”: that is, they sought to stop him from his call and his preaching through insults and threats. They said: “If you do not desist, Noah, you will surely be among those stoned to death.” (al-Shu'ara' 116) Mujahid said that “he was rebuked” means: he was driven mad.

“So Noah called upon his Lord” and said, “I am overwhelmed”—subdued—“so grant me victory”: that is, take vengeance for me upon them.

“Thereupon We opened the gates of heaven with pouring rain”: rain falling in a torrential downpour, which did not cease for forty days. Yaman said: It filled all that lay between heaven and earth.

“And caused the earth to burst forth with springs, so the waters met”: that is, the water of heaven and the water of the earth. He said, “the waters met,” although meeting does not occur with one thing, but only between two or more, because the word “water” may be both singular and collective. 'Asim al-Jahdari recited it: “so the two waters met.” “For a matter already decreed”: that is, decreed against them in the Mother of the Book. Muqatil said: Allah decreed that the two waters should be equal, and so they were as had been decreed.

“And We carried him”—that is, Noah—“upon a vessel of planks and nails”: that is, a ship made of planks. The description is mentioned while the noun itself is omitted. By “planks” He means the broad timbers of the ship, and by “nails,” the nails with which the planks are fastened. The singular is disar or dasir. One says, “I fastened the ship,” when one secures it with nails. Al-Hasan said: The nails are the prow of the ship; it was given this name because it pushes the water aside with its breast. Mujahid said: They are the side timbers of the ship. It was also said: its ribs. Al-Dahhak said: The planks are its two sides, while the nails are its base and its ends.