[10–13] “We certainly sent messengers before you among the factions of earlier peoples. No messenger ever came to them without their mocking him. Thus do We cause it to enter the hearts of the evildoers. They do not believe in it, and the precedent of the earlier peoples has already passed.”

Allah Most High says to His Prophet, when the polytheists denied him: This has always been the way of bygone nations and past generations. “We certainly sent messengers before you among the factions of earlier peoples”; that is, among their various groups and communities.

“No messenger ever came to them,” calling them to truth and guidance, “without their mocking him.”

“Thus do We cause it to enter”; that is, We cause denial to enter “the hearts of the evildoers”—those characterized by wrongdoing and falsehood. We punished them: since their hearts were alike in disbelief and denial, their treatment ⦗430⦘ of their prophets and messengers was likewise the same—mockery, ridicule, and refusal to believe. He therefore says: “They do not believe in it, and the precedent of the earlier peoples has already passed”; that is, Allah’s customary way of destroying those among them who did not believe in His signs.