46/34-35 — The close: patience and the term
"…Be patient, as the messengers of firm resolve were patient. And do not seek to hasten it for them. On the day they see what they are promised, it will be as though they had not stayed more than an hour of a day. This is a delivering. Is any destroyed but the people who have stepped outside the bounds?"
عَزْم — root ع-ز-م: to resolve firmly upon a matter, firmness of resolve; a sense of "cutting off" is also recorded in the root.
Who these messengers are is not enumerated in the verse. Differing lists are transmitted in the classical commentaries; I pass none of them on as certain knowledge. The only thing the verse gives is an attribute: those of firm resolve.
And the form of the command is worth recording: kamā ṣabara — "as they were patient". Patience is commanded together with its example; nothing new is asked for. This lies on the same line as mā kuntu bidʿan mina'r-rusul in the ninth verse: to be the continuation of the chain.
The measure is worth recording: sāʿatan min nahār — a piece of the daytime. Not of the night but of the day: that is, of the time a person passes awake and aware.
And what the sentence does joins with the third verse of the sūra: there it was said that the universe was created with ajalin musammā (a term whose name has been set). Here it is said how long that term looks when it is seen from its end. The sūra declares the term at the beginning and measures it at the end.
The root ب-ل-غ: to arrive at a place, to reach; bulūgh, tablīgh and balāgha are from the same root. The word passes a verdict about the sūra itself: the work of this text is to convey.
I record this as my own reading: the sūra began by demanding evidence (4), set the items of evidence out in order (15, 26, 27, 33), and at the end limited its own task to a single word. To compel, to take charge of the outcome, or to call to account is not the work the text assigns itself.
فَهَلْ يُهْلَكُ إِلَّا ٱلْقَوْمُ ٱلْفَٰسِقُونَ — and the close ties the measure of destruction to an act: fāsiqūn — those who step outside the bounds. No lineage, no people and no name of a community is mentioned; an attribute is mentioned. This is the line kept throughout the sūra.