The Quran

155

Preface

فَبِما نَقضِهِم ميثاقَهُم وَكُفرِهِم بِآياتِ اللَّهِ وَقَتلِهِمُ الأَنبِياءَ بِغَيرِ حَقٍّ وَقَولِهِم قُلوبُنا غُلفٌ ۚ بَل طَبَعَ اللَّهُ عَلَيها بِكُفرِهِم فَلا يُؤمِنونَ إِلّا قَليلًا

Yusuf Ali

(They have incurred divine¹ displeasure): In that they broke their covenant; that they rejected the signs of God. that they slew the Messengers in defiance² of right; that they said, “Our hearts are the wrappings³ (which preserve God’s Word; We need no more)”;- Nay, God hath set the seal on their hearts for their blasphemy, and little is it they believe;-

In verses 155, 156, 157, 160 (latter half), and 161 with parenthetical clauses including those in verses 158-159, and 160 (first half), there is a catalogue of the iniquities of which the Jews were guilty, and for these iniquities we must understand some such words as: “They are under divine displeasure.” Each clause of the indictment I have indicated by prefixing the word “that.”
Cf. 3:21, and nn. 363 and 364.
Cf. 2:88, and n. 92, where the full meaning is explained.
Note the crescendo (heightening effect) in the argument. Their iniquities were: (1) that they broke their Covenant; (2) that they rejected God’s guidance as conveyed in His signs; (3) that they killed God’s Messengers and incurred a double guilt, viz., that of murder and that of a deliberate defiance of God’s law; and (4) that they imagined themselves arrogantly self-sufficient, which means a blasphemous closing of their hearts forever against the admission of God’s grace. Then begins another series of iniquities from a different point of view. (1) that they rejected Faith; (2) that they made false charges against a saintly woman like Mary, who was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus; (3) that they boasted of having killed Jesus when they were victims of their own self-hallucination; (4) that they hindered people from God’s way; and (5) that by means of usury and fraud they oppressed their fellow-men.