Overall meaning : We have tested the idolatrous people of Makkah as we tested the owners of the garden before them, who had vowed that they would harvest all its fruits very early in the morning, taking everything for themselves before the poor came forward, and making no allowance for the will of Allah (by not saying in shaa Allaah ‘If Allah wills’). A punishment from your Lord, Muhammad, came down upon their garden while they slept at night and utterly destroyed it, burning it and leaving it all black like a pitch-black night!
At daybreak, they called out to one another, ‘Hurry to your garden if you intend to harvest and gather all its fruits before the poor come to it!’ So they went off, whispering to one another, ‘Make sure that no poor person enters the garden today.’ Thus they went forth early in the morning, angrily bent on depriving the poor of their fruits, fully convinced that they had the power to accomplish their purpose. But when they saw their garden utterly devastated and could not recognize it, they exclaimed, ‘This is certainly not our garden. We must have lost our way.’ Then, realising it was their very garden, they said, ‘We have not lost the way to our garden; rather, we are deprived of its fruits!’
The most sensible of them said, ‘Did I not advise you saying, “Will you not extol Allah’s limitless glory?” They admitted their mistake, saying, ‘Limitless in His glory is our Lord, and far exalted is He above wronging us by destroying our garden! We have wronged ourselves because of our evil intentions!’ They then began to blame one another, ‘Woe betide us!’ they said. ‘We have transgressed Allah’s limits. Now that we have repented, we hope that our Lord will give us something better than our garden that has been destroyed. To our Lord we humbly turn with hope.’
With a similar worldly punishment that the owners of the garden suffered will Allah punish those who disobey His commands by greedily withholding the bounties He has bestowed upon them and depriving the poor of it. But the punishment of the life to come is more terrible, if they but knew it!