And when the matter of the confederates was completed, he followed the state of those who incited them. They were a reason for their coming, like Huyayy ibn Akhtab and those who supported them in that. They broke what was for them of a covenant. So he said: ﴿And He caused those who supported them to descend﴾, meaning those who aided the confederates. Then he clarified them by saying, making it clear that he despised them: ﴿from the People of the Book﴾, and they were the Banu Qurayzah and those who entered with them in their fortress from the Banu Nadir, like Huyayy. This was after the expulsion of the Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu Nadir ﴿from their strongholds﴾, meaning their high fortresses, the plural of [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: siysiya], which is everything that one uses for protection, like the horns of cattle and others that are similar to them from fortresses.

And when the descent was from a place of protection, it was astonishing. It was in various forms, so it was not explicit in humiliation. The soul longed for clarification of its state. He clarified that it was humiliation, saying, connecting with the conjunction 'and' to relate what came before and what comes after: ﴿And He cast terror into their hearts﴾, meaning after the descent, just as His casting was before the descent. If He had preceded the casting to the descent, it would not have benefited these advantages, nor would the suitability of what came after have intensified for the descent.

And when he mentioned what He humiliated them with, he mentioned what resulted from it, dividing it. He said: ﴿a group﴾. He mentioned it with the word 'group' and made it accusative to indicate from the very beginning that it was under the control of the hands of the doers: ﴿You kill﴾, and they are the men, and it was about seven hundred. And when he began with what indicates division from which the group is derived, and he greatly emphasized the two effects resulting from terror, he gave precedence to the other effect to make the two beloved effects encompass what indicates the group. (p-334) So he said: ﴿And you take captive a group﴾, and they are the children and women. Perhaps he delayed the group here to imply choice in their matter, and he preceded it in the men due to the necessity of killing among them.