وَيَقُولُ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَءِذَا مَا مِتُّ لَسَوْفَ أُخْرَجُ حَيًّا · أَوَلَا يَذْكُرُ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَنَّا خَلَقْنَٰهُ مِن قَبْلُ وَلَمْ يَكُ شَيْـًٔا
"Man says: 'When I am dead, shall I really be brought forth alive?' Does man not call to mind that We created him before, when he was nothing?"
The answer overlaps word for word with the ninth verse of the sūra — I tabulated it in the section on 19/7-11. The sentence said to Zechariah is here said to the one who denies the resurrection.
I record this as my own reading: the sūra uses the same proof against two different doubts — one "I am old, I cannot have a child", the other "I am dead, I shall not be raised". Both are claims of impossibility, and both are met with the same past.
فَوَرَبِّكَ لَنَحْشُرَنَّهُمْ وَٱلشَّيَٰطِينَ ثُمَّ لَنُحْضِرَنَّهُمْ حَوْلَ جَهَنَّمَ جِثِيًّا (68)
جِثِيًّا — root ج-ث-و: to fall upon the knees. The root was analysed in al-Jāthiya in connection with the name of the sūra (wa tarā kulla ummatin jāthiya). I do not repeat it here.
The word occurs twice in this sūra (68 and 72) and conveys the same state as its use in al-Jāthiya: the posture of waiting.
"There is not one of you who will not come to it; this is a decree of your Lord, settled and carried out."
There is disagreement in the classical commentaries over how this verse is to be understood, and it is not concealed:
| Reading | What wurūd is |
|---|---|
| 1 | To come to, to pass over — not to enter |
| 2 | To draw near, to see |
| 3 | To enter — but for those who guard themselves it is cool and harmless |
The root و-ر-د: to arrive at water, to reach a spring. Wārid — the one who goes to fetch water. The dictionary sense of the word is "to reach"; it does not necessarily include entering — and this is the ground of the first reading. I record this as an observation about the language, not as a preference.
And the next verse makes the distinction: thumma nunajjī'lladhīna'ttaqaw wa nadharu'ẓ-ẓālimīna fīhā jithiyyā.