The meaning is that Allah sufficed their matter with the cry of an angel, and did not send down an army from the soldiers of heaven for their destruction, as He did on the Day of Badr and the trench. If you say: What is the meaning of His saying, 'And We were not to send down'? I say: Its meaning is:

And it was not appropriate in Our wisdom to send down for the destruction of a beloved people an army from the heavens. This is because Allah, glorified and exalted is He, has decreed the destruction of every people in some ways and not others, and this is based on what wisdom necessitated and what was required by the interest. Do you not see His saying, 'So among them were some whom We sent upon with a storm, and among them were some whom the cry seized, and among them were some whom We caused the earth to swallow, and among them were some whom We drowned'? If you say: Why then did He send down the soldiers from the heavens on the Day of Badr and the trench? Allah, glorified and exalted is He, said: 'So We sent upon them a wind and soldiers you did not see, with a thousand of the angels following.' With three thousand of the angels sent down, with five thousand of the angels marked?

I say: It was sufficient for one angel, for the cities of the people of Lot were destroyed by a single flap of the wing of Gabriel, and the land of Thamud and the people of Salih by a cry from him. However, Allah favored Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, in everything over the great prophets and the resolute messengers, let alone the beloved carpenter and his children, with reasons for honor and excuse that no one else was given. Among these is that He sent down for him soldiers from the heavens, as if He indicated by His saying:

'And We did not send down, and We were not to send down' that sending down soldiers is one of the great matters that only one like you is qualified for, and what we would not do for anyone else is only a single cry if it was the seizing or punishment, except for a single cry. Abu Ja'far al-Madani read it in the nominative on the basis of it being a complete verb, meaning: Nothing occurred except a cry, and the analogy and usage is on the masculine form, because the meaning is: Nothing occurred except a cry. However, he looked at the apparent wording and that the cry is in the position of the doer of the action, and similar is the reading of al-Hasan: 'So they became in the morning seeing nothing except their dwellings,' and the house of Dhī al-Rumma:

'And nothing remained except the ribs.'

For the poet describes his she-camel as having its flesh taken away by the journey through the desolate lands, meaning the journey in them and their severe heat, so that nothing remained in it except the ribs.

It was more eloquent to omit the 't' because the meaning is: Nothing remained in it except the ribs, but he feminized it considering the ribs. And 'al-jaraash' is the plural of 'jarsha' like 'qunfudh,' which is the thick and elevated. It is narrated: instead of the first line:

'He traversed the heat and the barren lands that are in its expanse.'

And 'al-ajraaz' is the plural of 'jarz,' which is the desolate expanse, and 'al-‘arood' is the plural of '‘arḍ' - with a dhamma then a sukoon - meaning its south. It is narrated: 'al-naḥz,' instead of 'al-har,' which is with a nun and a silent fa, meaning the jab and push. It is narrated 'ghurood' with a ghain with a dot: the plural of 'gharaḍ,' like 'qafl,' which is the strap of the saddle, intended by it the chest due to the proximity of the relationship. Or it is on the omission of the addition, meaning the place of its ghurood. It is possible that he intended by what is in its ghurood the chest itself and not the fat and flesh. And the meaning of 'ṭayy' is to conceal or to take away in a metaphorical way.

And Ibn Mas'ud read: 'al-azqiya' as singular, from 'zaqa' the bird 'yazqu' and 'yazqī,' if it cried. And from it is the proverb:

'Heavier than the zawaqi, they are extinguished as the fire extinguishes, and it returns to ash,' as Labid said:

'And man is nothing but like the shooting star and its light... it turns to ash after it was bright.'

And what is wealth and family except deposits... and it is inevitable one day that the deposits will be returned.

For Al-Bid Al-Amiri, that is: the state of a person, his life, and his joy, then his death and his extinction thereafter, is nothing but like the state of a flame of fire and its light, as it becomes ashes after its illumination. It can be that his saying "it turns to ashes" is an explanation clarifying the aspect of the analogy. This is a comparison of the form, and it is not correct to compare a person to a flame and its light. He likens a person's wealth and relatives to deposits in a profound analogy, while it is necessary that everything must be taken. He clarified this by saying: and it is necessary that the deposits be returned one day.