Saba
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE
[34:33]
But those who had been weak will say unto those who had gloried in their arrogance: "Nay, [what kept us away was your] devising of false arguments, night and day, [against God’s messages – as you did] when you persuaded us to blaspheme against God and to claim that there are powers that could rival Him!"
And when they see the suffering [that awaits them], they will [all] be unable to express [the full depth of] their remorse: for We shall have put shackles around the necks of those who had been bent on denying the truth: [and] will this be aught but a [just] requital for what they were doing?


* v.33 : I.e., always. The term makr (lit., “a scheme” or “scheming”) has here the connotation of “devising false arguments” against something that is true: in this case, as is shown in the first paragraph of verse 31 above, against God’s messages (cf. a similar use of this term in 10:21 and 35:43; see also 86:15).
* Lit., “[that we should] give Him compeers (andād).” For an explanation of this phrase and my rendering of it, see sūrah 2, note 13.
* For a justification of this rendering of the phrase asarru ’n-nadāmah, see sūrah 10, note 77.
* As pointed out by several of the classical commentators (e.g., Zamakhsharī, Rāzī, and Baydāwī) in their explanations of similar phrases occurring in 13:5 and 36:8, the “shackles” (aghlāl) which these sinners carry, as it were, “around their necks” in life, and will carry on Judgment Day, are a metaphor of the enslavement of their souls to the false values to which they had surrendered, and of the suffering which will be caused by that surrender.