Otherwise if an affliction a punishment should befall them because of what their own hands have sent before them in the way of disbelief and otherwise they might say ‘Our Lord why did You not send a messenger to us that we might have followed Your signs the ones sent with the messengers and been of the believers?’ the response to the conditional particle lawlā ‘if’ has been omitted and what follows it is a new subject; the meaning is ‘were it not for the affliction that is the cause of their saying’ or ‘were it not for their saying that is the cause of their affliction We would have hastened on for them their punishment and We would not have sent you as a messenger to them’.
