The angels are the angels of death, or of punishment, or your Lord comes, or all the signs of your Lord come. This is evidenced by His saying, or some of the signs of your Lord come, meaning the signs of the Day of Resurrection and total destruction, and some of the signs. The signs of the Hour, such as the sun rising from the west, and others. And from Al-Bara' ibn 'Azib: We were discussing the Hour when the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, appeared to us and said: 'What are you discussing?' We said: 'We are discussing the Hour.' He said: 'It will not come until you see before it ten signs: smoke, a beast of the earth, a sinking in the west, a sinking in the east, a sinking in the Arabian Peninsula, the Dajjal, the sun rising from the west, Gog and Magog, the descent of Jesus, and a fire that comes out from Aden.' [[I did not find it, but it is in Muslim from Hudhayfah similarly.]] 'It had not believed before' is a description for His saying 'a soul.' And His saying, or it has earned in its faith good, is an addition to 'it believed.' The meaning is that when the signs of the Hour come, which are compelling and urgent signs, the time for obligation has passed, so faith will not benefit a soul that did not believe before its faith after the signs appear, or a soul that did not earn in its faith good before what it earns of good afterward. Thus, there is no distinction, as you see, between the disbelieving soul when it believes [[Mawlid said: 'Thus, there is no distinction, as you see, between the disbelieving soul when it believes... etc.' Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said he aims to prove the correctness of his belief that the disbeliever and the sinner are equal in eternity by this verse, as it equates them in not benefiting from what they may attain after the signs appear, and this argument does not hold, for this speech includes the known type of rhetorical and eloquent science. The essence of the speech is: On the Day when some of the signs of your Lord come, no soul that was not a believer before its faith will benefit afterward, nor a soul that did not earn in its faith good before what it earns of good afterward, except that he combined the two statements and made them one statement for eloquence, brevity, and miraculousness: He intended to establish that this is the origin, and it does not contradict the principles of the Sunnah. We say: After the signs appear, acquiring good will not benefit, although prior faith is beneficial for safety from eternity. This indicates a rejection of the Mu'tazila, more than it indicates for them. And Allah is the Grantor of success.]] at a time other than faith, and between the soul that believed in its time and did not earn good, to know that His saying, 'Those who believed and did righteous deeds' combines two conditions, which should not be separated from each other, so that their possessor succeeds and is happy; otherwise, there will be misery and destruction. Say: 'Wait, indeed we are waiting.' This is a warning. And it was read: that the angels come to them, with a yā and a tā. Ibn Sirin read: 'does not benefit,' with a tā, because faith is attributed to the feminine pronoun, which is part of it, as in your saying: 'Some of his fingers went.'