Jonah
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[10:50]
Say: "Have you ever considered [how you would feel] if His chastisement were to befall you by night or by day? What could there be in that prospect that people lost in sin should wish to hasten?

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* v.50 : Lit., “What [part] thereof might the people lost in sin (al-mujrimūn) wish to hasten” – meaning, according to Zamakhsharī, that “all of [God’s] chastisement is awful and bitter, and should inspire one with the desire to flee therefrom;...and there is nothing in it that ought to make one wish to hasten it.” This is an allusion to the incredulous inquiry of the deniers of the truth about the coming of the Last Hour (verse 48 above), as well as to their sarcastic demand that they should be immediately chastised by God in proof of Muhammad’s prophetic mission (cf. 6:57-58 and 8:32, as well as the corresponding notes). – The expression “by night or by day” occurring in the preceding sentence denotes the suddenness and unexpectedness with which doom is bound to encompass the evildoers on the Day of Judgment.