And when the answer to their questions was completed in the best manner, interspersed with what you see of clear and compelling evidence for them in resolving the dispute, He followed that with recounting the matter that by neglecting it they dared to commit disbelief, which is the matter of resurrection, until He concluded it with what necessitates that His knowledge is limitless. This is because His powers in the enjoyment of the people of Paradise have no end, so they cannot be counted. The Jews had objected to His saying at the beginning of it, 'And you have not been given of knowledge except a little' [Al-Isra: 85], claiming that they were given the Torah. And for everything they asked about from the lengthy and detailed sections, there are matters that are overwhelming. And sometimes, a speaker would say: Why does He not increase the explanation of that? Allah, the Most High, commanded in response to all of that, informing them that they cannot grasp the complete explanation of anything from His knowledge, nor the final clarification of anything from His powers, cutting them off from further questioning, and bringing closer to their understanding by a kind of example: 'Say'—that is, O most honorable of creation to them: 'If the sea'—that is, its water, due to its greatness in your eyes—'were to be ink'—and it is a name for what is used to fill the pen with ink—'for the words'—that is, for writing the words—'of my Lord'—that is, the Benefactor towards me in describing that and other matters you have troubled yourselves with in asking about or otherwise—'the sea would be exhausted'—that is, it would run out with the weakness of exhaustion that cannot be recovered—'the sea'—because it is a finite body.

And when the created beings - due to their being possible - have nothing from themselves except non-existence, and the words are from the attributes of Allah, and the attributes of Allah are necessary to exist, then their end is impossible. So the end of the possible from the sea and what extends it in relation to it is encompassing all times. He stripped the context of the preposition and said: "Before they come to an end" meaning to perish and be exhausted "the words of my Lord" because they do not cease, as His knowledge and His decrees do not cease. Each of them has a long explanation and a great matter. And when no one other than Him can extend the sea, He said: "And if We were to come" meaning with what we have of the greatness that cannot be for anyone other than us "with something like it as an extension" meaning it would also be written from it, it would come to an end. And all of this is a metaphor for the absence of an end, because it is a comment on something impossible, as in their saying: 'You will continue to be like this as long as the sea is full and the night is dark,' and similar to this. And perhaps he expressed it in the plural of safety indicating that a little of it with this abundance is how about what is more than it. And that is a matter that does not fall under description. He expressed it with 'before' without saying 'and it did not come to an end' and similar to that, because that is enough to cut them off from being exhaustive in questioning. And because the expression with something like that might open a door of obstinacy, which is that they make the 'and' for the condition, thus making the end conditional upon that. As for [Surah Luqman], its context necessitated establishing what is in it on "the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy" [Luqman: 26], and its purpose is that the expression in it be different from what is here. So what is in each Surah is more eloquent in relation to its context, although there is not in the explicitness of either of them anything that indicates the end of the words or their absence. And in understanding each of them by contemplating the indications in the context and otherwise, what cuts off the absence of their end, and there is no contradiction between the two verses even if the expression in this Surah has led to similarity. And it is answered by what they said regarding the poet's saying: "On a path that does not guide by its beacon" that what is in the realm of negation does not necessitate existence. And perhaps the expression with something like that is one of the trials that distinguishes between the one whose heart has a disease and the one who is firm, who refers the ambiguous to the definitive. And this is what the decisive proof indicates that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, has no end to His essence, nor to anything from His attributes. Rather, He is the First and the Last, remaining without cessation - and Allah knows best.