أَوَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ وَكَانُوٓا۟ أَشَدَّ مِنْهُمْ قُوَّةً وَمَا كَانَ ٱللَّهُ لِيُعْجِزَهُۥ مِن شَىْءٍ فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَلَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ
"Have they not travelled in the land and looked at how the end of those before them was? They were stronger than these."
This sentence occurred in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/21 and 40/82 as well and was treated there: the evidence is brought not from a distant history but from the ruins along the road.
There is a difference that belongs here, and it is worth recording: in Ghāfir it was said of the ruins wa āthāran fi'l-arḍ (traces upon the earth); here it is not the traces but only strength that is mentioned.
The scope of the sentence must be recorded: fi's-samāwāti wa lā fi'l-arḍ — both fields at once. And this prepares the declaration of deferral in the next verse (45): the delay cannot be read as a want of power.
Together the two verses build a single sentence, and I give this as my own reading: the forty-fourth verse declares the possibility, the forty-fifth the decision to defer. That is: the term comes not from incapacity but from a respite that has been granted.