“The only response of his people was to say, ‘Expel them from your town! They are indeed people who keep themselves pure.’” That is, they abstain from committing the obscenity. “They resented them only because they believed in Allah, the Almighty, the Praiseworthy.”

“So We saved him and his family, except his wife; she was among those who remained behind.” That is, among those who remained to be punished. Allah commanded him to travel by night with his family, for the punishment would overtake his people in the morning. He therefore set out with them by night, except for his wife, who suffered the same fate as they did.

“And We rained down upon them a rain”—that is, intensely hot stones of baked clay—and Allah turned their uppermost parts upside down. “So behold how the evildoers met their end”: destruction and everlasting disgrace.