Tafsir of Al-Ma'aarij 70:28

This is an interjection serving to notify that no one should feel secure from the punishment of Allah—Mighty and Majestic is He—even if they have attained the heights of obedience, as these individuals have. For this reason, the Pious Predecessors—and they were who they were—remained fearful and trembling; to the extent that some of them said, "Would that I were a tree that is felled," and another said, "Would that my mother had not given birth to me," and other similar expressions.