Overall meaning : Then after Noah’s people We raised up a new people and sent forth to them a messenger from among themselves. ‘Worship Allah alone,’ he said, ‘for you have no god but Him. Will you not fear His punishment if you persist in worshipping other than Him?!’ The unbelieving notables and leaders among his people, who denied the life to come and who overstepped all bounds due to the good things of this life that We had bestowed upon them, said to the masses, ‘This man is nothing but a human being like yourselves, who eats the same food you eat and drinks what you drink. If you follow a human being like yourselves, you will certainly be losers.’

‘Does he promise you,’ they went on to say, ‘that when you are dead and reduced to dust and bones, you will be brought forth alive from your graves?! Impossible! What he has promised you is quite simply out of the bounds of possibility. There is no life beyond our present, earthly life: The living among us die and are never brought to life again; others are born and live, and we will never be brought back to life after death. This person who claims to be a messenger is but a man who has invented lies about Allah, and we will never believe what he says!’
Their messenger invoked his Lord, saying, ‘Help me, Lord, for they have disbelieve me.’ Allah answered his prayer, saying, ‘We will punish them soon, and they will then regret their obstinate unbelief.’ So We inflicted Our retribution on them: The mighty blast seized them deservedly, destroying them all; and We made them as scum borne by a torrent. Destroyed and excluded from Allah’s grace and mercy are the wrongdoers!
Then We raised up other peoples after them. No community can advance the time that Allah has appointed for their destruction, nor can they delay it.