Al-Baqara • EN-AL-JALALAYN
﴿ ۞ أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ خَرَجُوا۟ مِن دِيَٰرِهِمْ وَهُمْ أُلُوفٌ حَذَرَ ٱلْمَوْتِ فَقَالَ لَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ مُوتُوا۟ ثُمَّ أَحْيَٰهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَذُو فَضْلٍ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَشْكُرُونَ ﴾
“ART THOU NOT aware of those who forsook their homelands in their thousands for fear of death-whereupon God said unto them, "Die," and later brought them back to life? Behold, God is indeed limitless in His bounty unto man -but most people are ungrateful.”
Have you not seen an interrogative to provoke amazement and a longing to hear what will follow that is ‘Has your knowledge not attained’ those thousands four eight ten thirty forty or seventy thousand who went forth from their habitations fearful of death? hadhara’l-mawt an object denoting reason. These were a people from among the Children of Israel who fled their homeland after it was afflicted with plague. God said to them ‘Die!’ and they did. Then He gave them life after eight days or more as a result of the supplication of their prophet Ezekiel Hizqīl and they lived on for a while with the effects of death still upon them such that when they wore garments these turned into shrouds for the deceased; and this phenomenon remained with their descendants. Truly God is bounteous to people such as when He gave life back to those just mentioned but most people that is disbelievers are not thankful. The purpose of mentioning the story of these people is to encourage believers to fight in the way of God which is why the following statement is supplemented to it