And when He took away from them the ability to access the mentioned [punishment], it was a warning of the complete removal of all ability from them. It indicated that what they can do is only by His decree for them as a blessing from Him upon them. And when there were among them those who reached the utmost in the hardness of the heart and rigidity of thought, he attributes the inability to some matters to the fact that no custom has occurred with that, not to the fact that He, glorified and exalted is He, is the one who prevents that. Thus, His might encompassed them, and He said: ﴿A flame will be sent upon you﴾, meaning, O you who oppose. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: When [you are brought out of the graves] by being driven to the gathering place, ﴿A flame﴾ means: a great flame that spreads with the constriction surrounding you from every side, having a loud sound like that of a being with a narrow and severe nature.

And when the flame is referred to as that which has no smoke in it and also to the smoke of the fire and its heat and to other than that, He clarified it by saying: ﴿Of fire and molten copper﴾, meaning: smoke that is in the utmost horror, with sparks flying and molten tar. Ibn Jarir said: The Arabs call smoke 'nuhas' with the 'n' pronounced and broken, and all the reciters agreed on pronouncing it with the 'n' pronounced - this is the end. Abu Amr and Ibn Kathir read it as an addition to ﴿fire﴾ and the others raised it as an addition to ﴿a flame﴾.

And when that was logically and customarily possible, and they were aware that if they fell into such a thing, they would not escape from it in any way, it caused His saying: ﴿So do not help each other﴾. Ibn Burjan said: This is a confirmation of the saying of the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him: "A neck will emerge from the fire and will say, 'Bring forth every tyrant and obstinate one,' and it will gather them from among the crowd like the picking of sesame seeds by a dove, and the smoke of Hell will cover the criminals among the believers without harming them. And the sign of the flame and the neck of the fire there are the lightning strikes here and its thunder and the known fire."