Concise Quran Commentary
And if a divine punishment were to afflict them due to the sins and disbelief they were upon, they would have argued: “why did you not send a messenger to us, so we could have followed your ayaat and acted upon them, and have been from the true believers who follow your commandments. If it was not for that we would have hastened the punishment. However, we delayed it so that we may be excused by sending a messenger to them.”