Tafsir of Al-Haqqah 69:27

Al-Haqqah (The Inevitable Reality): Verse 27

Then He said: {Woe, if only it had been the final one!}

The pronoun in {Woe, if only it had been} (Yā laytahā)—to what does it refer? There are two interpretations:

1. The First Death: It refers to the first death (the one experienced in the worldly life). Although this death was not explicitly mentioned [in the immediate preceding text], it was so evident that it is treated as if it were mentioned.
   • {The final one} (al-Qāḍiyah) means the one that cuts off life completely.
   • It signifies termination and completion. Allah the Exalted says: {And when the prayer is finished} (Al-Jumu'ah: 10).
   • It is also said: Qadā ‘alā fulān (So-and-so died), meaning he passed away.
   • Therefore, the meaning is: "Oh, I wish the death I experienced had been the one that definitively ended my affair, so that I would not have been resurrected after it, nor would I have faced what I have now reached."
   • Qatādah said: He wished for death, as there was nothing in the world more hateful to him than death. And worse than death is that for which one wishes for death. A poet said:

2. The Current State: It refers to the state he witnessed upon reviewing his record (the Book of Deeds). The meaning is: "Oh, I wish this current state [of reckoning] had been the death that was decreed for me," because he saw that current state as more hideous and bitter than the harshness and severity of the death he had previously tasted, leading him to wish for the latter instead.

Then He said:

{My wealth has not availed me.} (28) {My authority has gone away from me.} (29) {Seize him and shackle him.} (30) {Then into the Hellfire roast him.} (31) {Then in a chain whose length is seventy cubits, insert him.} (32)