Surah 4. An-Nisaa', Ayah 155

The statement relating to their punishment - clearly implied here - is made explicit in verse {160}.

See 2:88 and the corresponding notes.

 Their hearts are unreceptive because they claim they have enough knowledge already.

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. iii. 21, and nn. 363 and 364.

Cf. ii. 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 Allah's guidance as conveyed in His signs; (3) that they killed Allah's Messengers and incurred a double guilt, viz., that of murder and that of a deliberate defiance of Allah's law; and (4) that they imagined themselves arrogantly self-sufficient, which means a blasphemous closing of their hearts forever against the admission of Allah'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 Allah 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 Allah's way: and (5) that by means of usury and fraud they oppressed their fellow-men.