And when he mentioned the last of the doomed nations in general and the first of them, and their destruction was by water, he mentioned among them those who were destroyed without that, to demonstrate the power and choice. He concealed their news without punishment, as it has been stated in the context of warning. He said: ﴿And 'Aad﴾, meaning: We destroyed 'Aad by the wind, ﴿and Thamud﴾ by the cry, ﴿and the companions of the pit﴾, meaning the well that is not covered; Ibn Jarir said: And 'Ras' in the speech of the Arabs refers to every dug thing like a well or a grave and the like. Meaning: We destroyed them by being swallowed up. ﴿And generations between that﴾, meaning the great matter mentioned, which is between every two nations of these nations. ﴿A great deal﴾, and suffice it to say what the Most High, the Great, says: Indeed, it is a great deal. Al-Baghawi narrated in the tafsir of ﴿A middle nation﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 143] from Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: "The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, stood among us one day after 'Asr, and he did not leave anything until the Day of Resurrection except that he mentioned it in that standing of his, until when the sun was over the tops of the palms and the edges of the walls, he said: 'Indeed, nothing remains of this world in what has passed except what remains of your day this. And indeed, this nation will fulfill seventy nations; it is the last of them and the most honored of them with Allah, the Exalted and Majestic.'" It was narrated by Al-Tirmidhi in the Fitans, and Ahmad, Al-Tabarani, and Ibn Majah also in the Fitans, but with some of it, and not one of them has the intended wording of the seventy nations. In some of their wordings, he made us turn to the sun, asking whether anything remained of it. This indicates that what remained of the day was about a tenth of the tenth. This necessitates, if we consider what has passed for this nation in terms of time, that the past from the world since the creation of Adam, peace be upon him, on the Friday that follows the six days in which the heavens and the earth were created, is more than one hundred thousand years - and Allah knows best.