And when all the messengers were together like a single individual due to the agreement of their intentions in calling to Allah and urging obedience to Him, he said, beginning to explain their coming by that which is suitable for many by intending the generality: ﴿So they disobeyed﴾ meaning they opposed and rejected ﴿the messenger of their Lord﴾ meaning every nation opposed the one whom the Benefactor sent to them by creating them from nothing, endowing them with abilities, providing for them, and sending their messenger to guide them, being deceived by His kindness. They did not allow that the Benefactor could cause harm as He could cause benefit, for He is the harmful just as He is the beneficial. So to indicate something like that, it is not permissible to transfer one of the two names from the other. And the cause of the disobedience is His saying: ﴿So He seized them﴾ meaning their Lord seized them with a force of might and anger ﴿a seizing﴾ from which there remained not a single one of the nation among them who denied the messenger. It was not like someone who aids against an enemy from among humans, for many of them must be missed even if he strives in pursuit. And that is only for the completeness of His knowledge, glorified and exalted is He, of particulars and universals, and the comprehensiveness of His power. And that seizing - while it is [with this -] greatness that it seized them as one soul - He made it glorified and exalted is He ﴿a high﴾ meaning elevated above them in the greatness of might and intensity of destruction, increasing in proportion to the increase of their deeds in wickedness. And 'riba' means growth, and its origin is increase. So He drowned Pharaoh and his soldiers, and He drowned all who denied Noah, peace be upon him, and they were all the people of the earth except for those who rode with him in the ship. And He carried the cities of Lot, peace be upon him, after He uprooted them from the earth upon the back of the wind by a command from Him through the angels, then He overturned them and followed them with stones and caused them to sink and submerged them with the foul water which there is nothing in the earth that resembles it.