Muḥammad 47:34

Inna'lladhīna kafarū wa ṣaddū ʿan sabīli'llāhi thumma mātū wa hum kuffārun fa-lan yaghfira'llāhu lahum

"Those who deny and turn others away from the path of God and then die as deniers: God will never forgive them."

ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ وَصَدُّوا۟ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ — for the third time in the sūra (1, 32, 34).

And each time something is added:

The sūra builds the same sentence three times and narrows it each time.

And this is the most important note on the verse, and per the method (Method) it needs to be written out plainly.

ثُمَّ — a conjunction announcing sequence and interval (tarākhī): "then", and it shows that a stretch of time has passed in between. Unlike the fāʾ, it announces not immediate succession but after time has passed.

وَهُمْ كُفَّارٌ — a circumstantial clause: "while they were deniers".

That is, the ruling is tied to the coming about of all three of these:

1. Denial, 2. Obstruction, 3. And dying in that state.

Without the third the ruling is not in force.

And this is a limit set by the verse's own wording. Its consequences are these:

One. The ruling cannot be issued about any living person. Because the third of the conditions — dying in that state — has not yet come about for one who is alive.

Two. Nor can it be issued by a human being about one who has died. Because a person's state at his last moment cannot be known.

Three. And the particle thumma shows that the intervening time has been left open. That is, the verse does not close off the possibility of a change in that interval; on the contrary, by tying the ruling to the end of the interval it leaves the interval open.

These three consequences follow from the wording of the verse. None of them is an interpretation; they come from the grammatical function of thumma and of the circumstantial clause.

And the relevant article of the method (Method) works here exactly:

"No blanket ruling is issued about an ethnic or religious group; what the verse describes are attributes, and whoever carries that attribute is included in it."

This verse also says when the attribute becomes settled: at the moment of death.

The root غ-ف-ر was treated at verse 15 (maghfiratun min rabbihim) and a reference was made to al-Ṣaff: the concrete source of the root is the mighfar, and forgiveness is a covering.

لَن — again the strongest negation of the future.

And an opposition is worth noting:

Four occurrences: two roots of covering (ك-ف-ر and غ-ف-ر), four different directions.

And the command in verse 19 is striking: before describing a situation in which forgiveness is definitively closed, the sūra had commanded the asking of forgiveness.