وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ قَوْلًا مِّمَّن دَعَآ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَعَمِلَ صَٰلِحًا … وَلَا تَسْتَوِى ٱلْحَسَنَةُ وَلَا ٱلسَّيِّئَةُ ٱدْفَعْ بِٱلَّتِى هِىَ أَحْسَنُ فَإِذَا ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُۥ عَدَٰوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُۥ وَلِىٌّ حَمِيمٌ
"Who is better in speech than one who calls to God, does righteous work, and says 'I am one of those who submit'? The good deed and the bad deed are not equal. Repel with what is better. Then the one between whom and you there is enmity becomes as though a warm friend."
The problem was set out in the twenty-sixth verse: the other side drowns out the voice. The thirty-fourth verse answers it — and the answer is not to raise the voice.
ٱدْفَعْ بِٱلَّتِى هِىَ أَحْسَنُ — dafʿ — root د-ف-ع: to push, to drive back. The same root was treated at al-Baqara 2/251 (wa lawlā dafʿu'llāhi'n-nāsa baʿḍahum bi-baʿḍ): the setting of a balance by forces limiting one another.
The difference here is worth recording: there dafʿ was a balance of forces; here "what is better" is shown as the instrument of the same verb. That is, the act of pushing remains; the instrument changes.
فَإِذَا ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُۥ عَدَٰوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُۥ وَلِىٌّ حَمِيمٌ — the result is given by way of a comparison: ka-annahū — "as though".
This particle must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading: the verse does not say that the enmity will disappear; it says that the relation will be like friendship. The particle of comparison also draws the limit of the promise.
وَلِىٌّ حَمِيمٌ — the word ḥamīm is from the root ح-م-م, and the two branches of the root (boiling water / close friend) were treated in detail in al-Ḥāqqa; the boiling-water branch also occurred three times in al-Wāqiʿa. Here the friendship branch is used.
وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ صَبَرُوا۟ وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ذُو حَظٍّ عَظِيمٍ — "none are brought to this but those who have endured, and none are brought to it but the possessor of a great portion."
The same sentence twice, with two separate conditions. And the verb is passive: yulaqqāhā — "is brought to it". That is, this bearing is named not as a temperament that comes of itself but as something given.
وَإِمَّا يَنزَغَنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ نَزْغٌ فَٱسْتَعِذْ بِٱللَّهِ — the root ن-ز-غ occurs for the first time in this corpus here. The sense the lexicographers give: to prod, to jab, to come between and incite. Nazagha baynahum — he sowed discord between them.
The choice of the word works together with the preceding verse: to meet evil with good is hard work, and the sudden prod that comes in the midst of that hardship is named separately. Having given the counsel, the verse also says where that counsel will most likely crack.