Overall meaning : Allah Almighty points out that the hypocrites, both men and women, are all alike as far as unbelief and hypocrisy are concerned. They enjoin what is evil, forbid what is good and refrain from spending their wealth as Allah commands them. They have deliberately neglected to remember Allah, and so Allah has disowned them and has not guided them. He will not show mercy to them and will make them suffer punishment in Hellfire for all eternity in the life to come. Surely it is the hypocrites are truly disobedient transgressors.
Allah has promised the hypocrites, both men and women, and the unbelievers the fire of Hell, where they dwell eternally: a sufficient punishment. Allah has excluded them from His mercy, and they will endure an incessant, never-ending chastisement.
Then, addressing the hypocrites and the unbelievers, the Almighty says: You act like those from amongst the past nations did—who were superior to you in strength and had more abundance of wealth and of children. They enjoyed the portion decreed for them in this world, in preference to the eternal bliss in the next life, and you have enjoyed your portion in this world, as they did. You have turned away from the hereafter, just as the unbelievers before you did, and you have indulged in unbelief, falsehood and mocking Allah and His signs and Messenger just as they did. Their works came to nothing in this world and will come to nothing in the afterlife, and they are the true losers.
Has the news of Allah’s destruction of the past nations not come to these hypocrites and unbelievers—the stories of Noah’s people; and of the tribes of ‘Ad and Thamud, to whom Hud and Salih were sent respectively; and of Abraham’s people; and of the inhabitants of Midian, to whom Shu’ayb was sent and of the people of Lot, whose cities were turned upside down? Their messengers brought them manifest miracles, but they obstinately disbelieved them and so Allah destroyed them. Allah did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves by their unbelief, disobedience and disbelieving Allah’s messengers, hence the just punishment they received.