14. That is, when the disbelievers will see on the Day of Resurrection that they had committed a grave folly by founding their entire life-work on polytheism and atheism, denial of the Hereafter and opposition to the Messenger. And due to that folly they were now doomed to that evil end. They will bite at their fingers and will curse themselves fretfully. At that time the angels will proclaim to them: Today you are being angry with yourselves, but in the world when the Prophets of Allah and the other good people invited you to the right path to save you from this evil end, you turned down their invitation, Allah’s wrath against you then was even greater.

15. This same thing has already been mentioned in (Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 28). It implies this: How can you disbelieve in Allah? He granted you life when you were lifeless; then He will give you death and then will again raise you back to life. The disbelievers do not deny the first three of these conditions, because they are perceptible and therefore un-deniable. But they refuse to accept the occurrence of the fourth condition, for they have not yet experienced it, and only the Prophets have foretold it. On the Day of Resurrection when the fourth condition will also be practically experienced by them, then they will acknowledge that the same which the Prophets had foretold had actually happened.

16. That is, we confess that we made a grave mistake when we denied this after life; our life was filled with sins when we followed falsehood.

17. That is, is there any possibility now that our confession of sins be accepted and we be rescued from this state of torment in which we have been seized?

18. That is, the Judgment now rests entirely with that God alone, Whose Godhead you did not acknowledge, and those others whom you persistently regarded as associates and partners in the powers of Godhead, have no share whatsoever in the judgment. (For a full understanding of this point, please see (verse 45 of Surah Az-Zumar and its E.N. 64). This sentence by itself gives the meaning that there would be no possibility of any way out for the disbelievers from the state of torment, for they did not only deny the Hereafter but they had aversion to their Creator and Sustainer, and they were not satisfied until they had associated others with Him.

19. Signs imply those signs which point to the great truth that the Fashioner, Ruler and Administrator of the Universe is One and only One God.

20. Provision here implies the rain, for every kind of the sustenance that man gets in the world, depends ultimately on the rainfall. Allah presents this one single sign out of His countless signs, as if to draw the people’s attention to the fact: If you only consider and ponder over the arrangement of this one thing, you will understand that the concept being presented in the Quran of the administration of the Universe, is true. This arrangement could exist only if the Creator of the earth and its creatures and of water and air and the sun and the heat and cold was only One God, and this arrangement could continue to exist for millions and millions of years with perfect regularity only if the same Eternal God caused it to exist continually. And the One Who brought this arrangement into existence could only be an All-Wise and All-Merciful Lord, Who along with creating men, animals and vegetables in the earth, also created water precisely according to their needs and requirements, and then made these wonderful arrangements for transporting and spreading that water to different parts of the earth with perfect regularity. Now, who can be more unjust than the one who sees all this and yet denies God, or associates some other beings also with Him in Godhead?

21. That is, a person who has turned away from God and whose intellect has been clouded and corrupted by heedlessness or prejudice, cannot learn any lesson from any sign. He will see with his animal eyes that the winds blew, the clouds gathered, the lightning thundered and flashed and the rain fell; but his human eyes will never perceive why all this happened, who caused it, and what rights He has on him.

22. For the explanation of making one’s religion sincerely Allah’s, see (E.N. 3 of Surah Az-Zumar).