Overall meaning : Allah Almighty explains that the path to Paradise is fraught with hardships and difficulties and gaining Allah’s good pleasure requires great patience, untiring perseverance and considerable effort. He disapproves of the believers’ entertaining the erroneous thought that they will enter Paradise just by merely professing faith. He explains that they have to be put to the test so He identifies those among them who truly fight for His cause and those who endure with fortitude.
Then He reminds them that they used to long for confronting the enemy on the battlefield and attain martyrdom by being killed while fighting for His cause, and they had already seen with their own eyes what they had hoped for on the day of Uhud, so why did they not stand firm and persevere in order to attain what they had hoped for?
The Almighty informs them that Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is not to live in this world forever and that he is only a messenger like the rest of Allah’s messengers before him, whose earthly terms ended with natural death or killing. If, then, his lifespan expires, will this provide a reasonable justification for their forsaking their faith?! Those who renounce their faith will by so doing not harm Allah in the least, and He will certainly reward the grateful.
No person will die, Allah explains, except by His permission and that death will take place only when a person reaches the end of the earthly term Allah has appointed for him. He further states that He will repay people according to their intentions. Those who desire to earn with their deeds only the reward of this world will have only what Allah has decreed for them in this world without being assigned any reward for such deeds in the life to come. As for those who desire the reward of the life to come, He will grant it to them, and He will surely reward the thankful.