(12–14) “If only you could see the evildoers with their heads bowed before their Lord, saying, ‘Our Lord, we have seen and heard, so send us back that we may do righteous deeds. We are now certain.’ Had We willed, We would have given every soul its guidance. But My Word will come into effect: ‘I will surely fill Hell with jinn and humans all together.’ So taste the punishment because you forgot the meeting of this Day of yours. Indeed, We have forgotten you. And taste the everlasting punishment for what you used to do.”
Having mentioned their return to Him on the Day of Resurrection, Allah Most High describes their condition as they stand [before Him] (1), saying: “If only you could see the evildoers”—those who persisted in grave sins—“with their heads bowed before their Lord,” humbled, submissive, and abased, acknowledging their guilt and asking to be sent back, saying: “Our Lord, we have seen and heard.” That is, the matter has become clear to us and we have seen it with our own eyes, so it has become certainty through direct sight.
“So send us back that we may do righteous deeds. We are now certain.” That is, we are now certain of what [we had] (2) denied. In other words, you would see a dreadful affair, a distressing condition, people utterly lost, and a plea that goes unanswered, for the time of respite has passed.
All of this occurs by Allah’s decree and predestination, for He left them to disbelief and sin. Thus He said: “Had We willed, We would have given every soul its guidance.” That is, We would have guided all people and united them upon guidance, for Our will is fully capable of bringing that about. Divine wisdom, however, precludes that they should all follow guidance. Thus He said: “But My Word will come into effect”; that is, it became binding and was firmly established ⦗655⦘, with a permanence that admits no change.
“I will surely fill Hell with jinn and humans all together.” This promise must inevitably be fulfilled, and there is no escaping it. Its causes—disbelief and acts of disobedience—must therefore necessarily come to pass.
“So taste the punishment because you forgot the meeting of this Day of yours.” That is, it will be said to the evildoers who have been overwhelmed by humiliation and who ask to be returned to this world so that they may make up for what they missed: The time for returning has passed, and nothing remains but punishment. So taste the painful punishment because you forgot the meeting of this Day of yours. This forgetting means abandonment: you turned away from it and failed to prepare for it through deeds, as though you were neither approaching it nor destined to encounter it.
“Indeed, We have forgotten you.” That is, We have abandoned you to punishment as a recompense of the same kind as your conduct: just as you forgot, so you have been forgotten. “And taste the everlasting punishment”; that is, punishment without end. If punishment had an appointed term and a final limit, that would afford some relief and mitigation. But the punishment of Hell—may Allah protect us from it—contains not a breath of relief, nor will their punishment therein ever cease. “For what you used to do” of disbelief, iniquity, and acts of disobedience.