Tafsir of Al-A'raf 7:192

{And they cannot help them}, meaning the idols, {for them}, meaning for the polytheists who worshipped them, {nor can they help themselves}.

This means they cannot provide any aid when an important matter saddens them or a difficult ordeal befalls them; nor can they help themselves if an incident from among the various incidents befalls them. That is to say, they cannot avert it from their own selves. Mentioning "help" here is for the sake of parallelism (mushakala), and it is a metaphor for the necessitated consequence of its meaning. This is to emphasize their inability and neediness, which contradict the entitlement to divinity. They were previously described as "created beings" because they were deserving of that description, but they are not described here as "being helped" because they are not deserving of that status. As for the statement of the Glorified and Exalted One: