Regarding the punishment of his people, Allah said: “We did not send down upon his people after him any army from heaven,” meaning: We had no need to go to such lengths in punishing them as to send down an army from heaven to destroy them, “nor would We ever have sent one down,” for there was no need to do so. Such is the immensity of Allah’s power and the utter weakness of human beings that the slightest touch of His punishment is enough to destroy them. “It was nothing but a single blast”—that is, their punishment was only a single sound, uttered by one of Allah’s angels—“and at once they were extinguished.” Their hearts were torn apart within their bodies, and that blast struck them with terror. Thus they became lifeless, with neither sound nor movement nor life, after all their insolence and arrogance, their confronting the noblest of creation with those vile words, and their tyrannical conduct toward them.

Lamenting the condition of His servants, Allah said: “Alas for the servants! No messenger ever came to them without their mocking him.” That is: How great was their misery, how prolonged their suffering, and how profound their ignorance, for they possessed this vile trait, which is the cause of every misery, punishment, and exemplary chastisement.