82۞ وَإِذا وَقَعَ القَولُ عَلَيهِم أَخرَجنا لَهُم دابَّةً مِنَ الأَرضِ تُكَلِّمُهُم أَنَّ النّاسَ كانوا بِآياتِنا لا يوقِنونَMuhammad AsadNow, [as for the deaf and blind of heart - I when the word [of truth] stands revealed against them,1 We shall bring forth unto them out of the earth a creature which will tell them that mankind had no real faith in Our messages.2Lit., "comes to pass against them" - i.e., when the truth becomes obvious to them against all their expectations, and thus confounds them utterly: an allusion to the approach of the Last Hour, Resurrection and God's Judgment, all of which they were wont to regard as "fables of ancient times" (cf. verses 67-68 above). Alternatively, the phrase idha waqa'a al-qawi 'alayhim may be understood as "when the sentence [of doom] is passed on them", i.e., at the approach of the Last Hour, when it will be too late for repentance.The "creature brought forth out of the earth" is apparently an allegory of man's "earthly" outlook on life - in other words, the soul-destroying materialism characteristic of the time preceding the Last Hour. This "creature" parabolically "tells" men that their submergence in exclusively materialistic values - and, hence, their approaching self-destruction - is an outcome of their lack of belief in God. (See also 7:175-176 and the corresponding note 141.)