Tafsir of Al-Isra 17:98

(That is their recompense because they...)

(That) — meaning the punishment understood from His, the Glorified, statement: "Whenever it abates, We shall increase for them the blaze," or referring to all that was mentioned regarding their gathering upon their faces, blind, dumb, and deaf, etc. What we have mentioned is implicitly included therein.

(Their recompense because they...) — meaning, by reason of the fact that they (disbelieved in Our verses), the Quranic ones and the cosmic ones, which indicate the validity of the resurrection with clear indication, or the validity of that with which We sent you absolutely; thus, it encompasses what was mentioned.

(That) is a subject, or (their recompense) is its predicate, and the prepositional phrase is connected to it. It has been permitted that (their recompense) be a second subject, the prepositional phrase being its predicate, and the entire sentence being the predicate for (That). It has also been permitted that (their recompense) be an appositive (badal) of (That), or an explanatory statement, in which case the predicate is the prepositional phrase. It is also said that (That) is the predicate of an omitted subject, meaning "the matter is that," and what follows is a subject and predicate; but this is weak.

(And they said) — denying in the strongest terms: (When we are bones and crumbling remains) — it is originally, as Al-Raghib said, like futat (crumbs), that which is broken and scattered of straw; the meaning here is "scattered." (Shall we truly be resurrected as a new creation?) — this is either an infinitive acting as an emphatic for an unexpressed verb of the same meaning, meaning "shall we be resurrected with a new resurrection," or it is a circumstantial qualifier (hal), meaning "created anew."