And when the Exalted clarified what their saying was a cause for, which was being taken suddenly, He clarified what would be the opposite of their saying, which would be a cause for blessings if it occurred by His saying: ﴿And if the people of the towns﴾, meaning: this which we have narrated its news, ﴿had believed﴾, meaning: in what their messengers brought to them, ﴿and had been conscious of Allah﴾, meaning: feared the command of Allah and placed between themselves and His wrath a protection through His obedience, so they would have continued in their faith, ﴿We would have opened upon them blessings﴾, meaning: stable goodness that no one could remove, ﴿from the heavens﴾, meaning: with rain that is like the mouths of water skins and what is similar to it, ﴿and the earth﴾ with thick vegetation and what is close to it. And the reading of Ibn 'Amir with emphasis indicates the abundance of those blessings, and the essence of blessing is the persistence in good.

And when the speech was with what 'if' implied in the strength of their disbelief, He expressed it with His saying: ﴿But they denied﴾, meaning: denial was their habit and their nature, and for that reason they did not believe our messengers in anything. And when denial is a place of harshness and rigidity, which is a cause for the lack of consideration of evidence, it caused punishment to come upon them, so He said: ﴿So We seized them﴾, meaning: with what we have of greatness, ﴿because﴾, meaning: because of what ﴿they were earning﴾, meaning: due to their vile natures from the deeds appropriate to it.