Overall meaning : Allah takes away people’s souls when they reach the end of the earthly terms He has appointed for them, as well as the souls of the living in their sleep when their earthly term of life has not ended yet. He withholds the souls of those for whom He has ordained death, by not permitting them to return again into their respective bodies, but sends back the souls of the living into their respective bodies when they awake, not causing them to die until their appointed time of death falls due. Surely in this there are signs for people who reflect.
The Quraysh idolaters have indeed taken idols which they worship besides Him in order to intercede with Him on their behalf! Say to them, Muhammad, ‘Do you take your idols as intercessors even though they have no power over anything nor understanding?!’ Say to them, ‘To Allah alone belongs all intercession; He alone grants the power of intercession to whomever He wills. His alone is the dominion over the heavens and the earth and, in the end, to Him will you all be brought back.’
When Allah alone is mentioned and not the false deities, the hearts of the idolaters who deny the hereafter shrink with aversion; but when their false gods are mentioned, they rejoice.