( الذين قالوا لإخوانهم ) في النسب لا في الدين وهم شهداء أحد ( وقعدوا ) يعني : قعد هؤلاء القائلون عن الجهاد ( لو أطاعونا ) وانصرفوا عن محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم وقعدوا في بيوتهم ( ما قتلوا قل ) يا محمد ، ( فادرءوا ) فادفعوا ، ( عن أنفسكم الموت إن كنتم صادقين ) إن الحذر لا يغني عن القدر .
Those who stayed behind from fighting, and said of their relatives who suffered on the day of Uḥud that if they had done as they said and not gone to fight then they would not have been killed, tell them, O Prophet, in reply, to keep death away from themselves when it arrives, if they are telling the truth in their claim that they would not have been killed if they had listened to them; and that the reason they themselves escaped death was because they stayed behind from fighting in Allah’s cause.