إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُدَٰفِعُ عَنِ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ خَوَّانٍ كَفُورٍ
The root د-ف-ع: to push, to drive back, to bar the way of something. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/251. I do not repeat it here.
This pattern generally conveys reciprocity in Arabic (qātala — he fought, jādala — he disputed). But it is used for one-sided intensity as well.
The lexicographers generally take the use in this verse in the second sense: continual and forceful defence. I give this as a report.
A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that the word is also read as يَدْفَعُ (yadfaʿu, Form I). I do not name a reader. The direction of the meaning does not change; the difference of pattern touches the note of intensity.
And where the verse stands must be recorded: this is the verse immediately before the permission to fight. Before permission is given, then, it is said who the real agent of the defence is.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the thirty-eighth verse puts God as the agent; the thirty-ninth gives permission to man. Had the order been reversed, the meaning would have been reversed too.
خَوَّان and كَفُور — both in the intensive pattern. خ-و-ن: betrayal of a trust, secret diminishing. ك-ف-ر: to cover over, ingratitude.