Overall meaning : Allah, Glorified and Exalted be He, mentions the punishment He has in store for those who barter away Allah’s covenant obliging them to believe and obey the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and swear false oaths for a paltry price and transient worldly gains, thereby breaking Allah’s covenant. He points out that they will have no share of good on the Day of Judgement. Rather, He will neither speak to them, nor mercifully look at them, nor cleanse them of their sins and defilement, and He will inflict a painful punishment on them.
Almighty Allah then informs His believing servants that there are some among the People of the Book who twist their tongues when quoting the Scriptures, thereby deliberately mispronouncing words and distorting their meanings in order to confound the believers and lead them astray by making them believe that what they are reading and quoting is part of the Scriptures, when it is not. They also claim that it is part of what Allah has revealed to His prophets, when it is not either; rather, it is what they have themselves invented and introduced into the Scriptures, thereby purposely telling lies about Allah and altering and distorting His books, and they know in the depths of their hearts that they are blatant liars.
Then He explains that it is totally impossible and wholly inconceivable that He should ever give a human being the Scripture, wisdom and prophethood, then the latter would call people to worship himself, saying, ‘Worship me instead of Allah.’ On the contrary, when Allah honours such a human being with such qualities, the latter would say to people, ‘Study and learn the Scripture, follow its teachings, be totally devoted to Allah, worship Him sincerely, set a good example for people and instruct them in their religion by virtue of your perseverance in teaching the Scripture and constantly reading it and memorizing it yourselves.’ By the same token, it is utterly inconceivable that a prophet would ever command people to take the angels and prophets as lords or gods to worship instead of Allah. How could he possibly command them to become unbelievers after having surrendered themselves to Allah?