Overall meaning : The believers, expressing their longing for divine revelation to come down, say, ‘If only a surah were revealed!’ But when an unambiguous surah in which Allah commands fighting the unbelievers is revealed, you, Muhammad, see the hypocrites in whose hearts is a disease of doubt staring at you like someone who has gone into his death throes, due to their cowardice and hate of fighting for Allah’s cause.
Far better for them, however, would be their obedience to Us and their speaking good words. Then when fighting for Allah’s cause (jihad) is ordained, it would be better for them to be true to Allah.
If you, hypocrites, turn away now from the truth and abandon jihad, what is to be expected of you but relapsing into your old ways before the advent of Islam by spreading corruption and severing your ties of kinship? These are they whom Allah has expelled from His grace, leaving them deaf—unable to benefit in such a way as to benefit from what they hear—and blind to the truth. Will they not, then, seek to understand the Qur’an? Rather, Allah has set locks upon them!