67:21 Or is there any that could provide you with sustenance if He should withhold His provision [from you]? Nay, but they [who are bent on denying the truth] stubbornly persist in their disdain [of God’s messages] and in their headlong flight [from Him]!
Explanation
i.e., “Whether we succeed in spreading God’s message or not, what have you, unbelievers, to gain?”
67:22 But then, is he that goes along with his face close to the ground better guided than he that walks upright on a straightway?
Explanation
Apart from a further reminder of God’s providential power (thus continuing the argument touched upon in verses 19-21), the above verse has a parabolic significance as well. Just as water is an indispensable element of all organic life, so is a constant flow of moral consciousness an indispensable prerequisite of all spiritual life and stability: and who but God could enable man to regain that consciousness after all the older ethical stimuli have dried up and “vanished underground”?
67:23 Say “[God is] He who has brought you [all] into being, and has endowed you with hearing, and sight, and hearts, [yet] how seldom are you grateful!”
67:24 Say “It is He who has multiplied you on earth, and it is unto Him that you shall be gathered [on resurrection].”
67:25 But they [only] ask, “When is this promise to be fulfilled? [Answer this, O you who believe in it] if you are men of truth!”
67:26 Say thou, [O Prophet] “Knowledge thereof rests with God alone, and I am only a plain warner.”
67:27 Yet in the end, when they shall see that [fulfillment] close at hand, the faces of those who were bent on denying the truth will be stricken with grief, and they will be told, “This it is that you were [so derisively] calling for!”
67:28 Say [O Prophet] “What do you think? Whether God destroys me and those who follow me or graces us with His mercy – is there anyone that could protect [you] deniers of the truth from grievous suffering [in the life to come]?”
67:29 Say “He is the Most Gracious, we have attained to faith in Him, and in Him have we placed our trust, and in time you will come to know which of us was lost in manifest error.”
67:30 Say [unto those who deny the truth] “What do you think? If of a sudden all your water were to vanish underground, who [but God] could provide you with water from [new] unsullied springs?”
