And when he completed the story of those who were destroyed by that which is related to destruction, which is the thunderbolt, he followed it with the story of those who were destroyed by that which is related to revival, which is the water that most of what the winds stirred contains. And they were present in the earth and the sky - and its causes were prepared - while they did not feel anything of that. As for Our believing servants, We prepared for them the means of salvation from the ship and others, and We informed them of it. So everything We intended and that Our allies said about Us was said, changing the style to draw attention to the greatness of the very destruction due to it being related to revival, preservation, and manipulation of the causes: ﴿And the people﴾ meaning: And We destroyed the people of ﴿Noah﴾ due to the abundance among them and the strength of their attempts and their standing up for what they wanted. It is permissible that it is connected to 'in it', meaning: And We left them as a sign. And this parsing is improved by the fact that they were all destroyed and they were all the people of the earth, and their punishment encompassed all the earth. They had the sign, and this parsing is supported by the reading of Abu Amr, Hamzah, and Al-Kisai with the genitive case, connecting it to the pronoun of 'in it'.

And when their destruction was great and widespread in some time, the preposition was introduced, and he said: ﴿Before﴾ meaning: before all these nations. Then he explained their destruction by saying: ﴿Indeed, they were﴾ in character and nature, with no means for others among the people of causes in their righteousness ﴿a people﴾ meaning: strong ﴿wicked﴾ meaning: deeply entrenched in deviating from the confines of religion.