2/86 — Trade again
The metaphor of trade used of the hypocrites at verse 16 of the sūra comes back here — there "straying" was bought at the price of "guidance", here "this world" at the price of "the hereafter".
What the two transactions have in common is that both were made with something in hand. What is lost is not something never possessed; it is something held and given away.
And the name of what is taken attaches to the same root as the word we saw at verse 61: dunyā, that is, adnā — the near, and at the same time the low. The evil of the transaction lies not in the intention but in the price: what is near has been exchanged for what lasts.