(44–46) “Warn the people of the Day when the punishment will come upon them. Then those who did wrong will say, ‘Our Lord, grant us respite for a short while; we will answer Your call and follow the messengers.’ ‘Did you not swear before that you would never pass away? * You dwelt in the homes of those who wronged themselves, and it became clear to you how We dealt with them, and We set forth examples for you. * They devised their schemes, but their schemes were fully known to Allah, even though their scheming was such that mountains could be made to vanish by it.’”
Allah Most High says to His Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him: “Warn the people of the Day when the punishment will come upon them”—that is, describe to them the condition of that Day and warn them against the deeds that incur punishment. When it comes with all its hardships and terrors, “those who did wrong” through disbelief, denial, and every kind of sin will regret what they did and ask to be returned when the time for that has already passed. They will say, “Our Lord, grant us respite for a short while”—that is, return us to this world, for now we see clearly—“we will answer Your call,” for Allah calls to the Home of Peace, “and follow the messengers.” All of this is merely an attempt to escape the punishment; otherwise, they are lying in this promise: “If they were returned, they would certainly go back to what they had been forbidden.”
They will therefore be rebuked and told: “Did you not swear before that you would never pass away?”—that you would never depart from this world and pass into the Hereafter? The falsity of your oaths and claims has now become plain. ⦗428⦘ Nor can your conduct in this world be excused by any deficiency in the clear signs. Rather, “you dwelt in the homes of those who wronged themselves, and it became clear to you how We dealt with them,” through the various kinds of punishment—how Allah brought punishment down upon them when they denied the clear signs. “And We set forth examples for you”—clear examples that would remove even the slightest doubt from the heart. Yet those signs did not benefit you; instead, you turned away and persisted in falsehood until matters reached this point and you came to this Day, when no false excuse will benefit anyone who offers it.
“They devised their schemes”—that is, those who denied the messengers devised schemes representing the utmost of their intent and all they were capable of carrying out. “But their schemes were fully known to Allah”—that is, He encompassed them in knowledge and power, and their schemes recoiled upon them: “An evil scheme only engulfs those who devise it.”
“Even though their scheming was such that mountains could be made to vanish by it”—that is, so immense was the scheming of the disbelievers who denied the messengers, against the truth and those who brought it, that firmly rooted mountains could have been displaced by it. In other words, “They devised a mighty scheme,” one whose magnitude was beyond measure, but Allah turned their plot back against them.
This includes everyone among the opponents of the messengers who schemes to support falsehood or invalidate the truth. The point is that their schemes availed them nothing. They did Allah no harm whatsoever; they harmed only themselves.