And when he had judged him with misery, he responded to the blessing of being given respite and a long life by persisting in disbelief. He informed himself of that by saying, "Because You have led me astray," meaning: "Because of Your leading me astray," which is the creation of error and the belief in falsehood in my heart because of them. By Allah, "I will surely sit in wait for them" means: "I will act in cutting them off from good like one who is fully capable and determined, with nothing else to occupy him but what he is focused on," during the period of Your respite for me, by cutting them off from You by preventing them from doing what You commanded them to do, and compelling them to do what You prohibited them from. Just as a highway robber sits on the path to ambush. "Your path" means: in all of Your paths, as indicated by the removal of the lowering. "The straight" is Islam with all of its branches. Whoever attributes leading astray to someone other than Allah—because of his belief that this is something Allah is free from—has fallen into a greater evil than that from which he fled, which is that he has made in existence two agents whose choices contradict the choice of the other.