مَثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ حُمِّلُوا۟ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَحْمِلُوهَا كَمَثَلِ ٱلْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًۢا ۚ بِئْسَ مَثَلُ ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ لَا يَهْدِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
The example of those who were charged with the Torah, then failed to carry it, is that of an ass carrying books. Evil is the example of the people who deny Allah’s signs, and Allah does not guide the wrongdoing lot.
قُلْ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ هَادُوٓا۟ إِن زَعَمْتُمْ أَنَّكُمْ أَوْلِيَآءُ لِلَّهِ مِن دُونِ ٱلنَّاسِ فَتَمَنَّوُا۟ ٱلْمَوْتَ إِن كُنتُمْ صَٰدِقِينَ
Say, ‘O Jews! If you claim that you are Allah’s favourites, to the exclusion of other people, then long for death, should you be truthful.’
وَلَا يَتَمَنَّوْنَهُۥٓ أَبَدًۢا بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلِيمٌۢ بِٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
Yet they will never long for it, because of what their hands have sent ahead, and Allah knows best the wrongdoers.
قُلْ إِنَّ ٱلْمَوْتَ ٱلَّذِى تَفِرُّونَ مِنْهُ فَإِنَّهُۥ مُلَٰقِيكُمْ ۖ ثُمَّ تُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰ عَٰلِمِ ٱلْغَيْبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
Say, ‘The death that you flee will indeed encounter you. Then you will be returned to the Knower of the sensible and the Unseen, and He will inform you about what you used to do.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The parable of v.5 is read identically across the sources, with one shared caution. al-Mizan, Tabarsi, Tusi and Qummi/al-Burhan all explain asfar as "books" (sing. sifr, "that which unveils"), and take "laden with the Torah then not bearing it" to mean taught it but not acting by it: the Jews memorized and recorded the Torah yet did not live it, like a donkey that feels only the weight of the wisdom on its back. Tabarsi and Tusi press the warning home to Muslims — Ibn 'Abbas: "whoever recites the Qur'an without understanding and turns away is included in this likeness," but not one who memorizes seeking its meaning. al-Mizan ties the parable structurally to the sura's close: it is interposed to warn the believers, who will shortly be rebuked for deserting the Prophet, not to slight their religion as the Jews slighted theirs. The Enlightening Commentary and al-Mizan both cite the Durr al-Manthur tradition that "whoever speaks while the imam preaches on Friday is like a donkey carrying tomes," linking the two ends of the sura.
On vv.6-7 the sources agree this is a challenge argument (ihtijaj) exposing the Jews' claim to be "God's friends to the exclusion of mankind." al-Mizan aligns it with 5:18, 2:94 and 2:111: a true friend longs to meet his friend, so their refusal to wish for death betrays the claim as false; their never wishing for it is "because of what their hands have sent ahead" of wrongdoing. Tabarsi and Tusi highlight the evidentiary force — the Qur'an foretold they would never wish for death, and so it proved, a miracle of prophethood; Tabarsi adds the report "had they wished it, they would have died to the last of them." Qummi supplies the scriptural echo the challenge presupposes: "in the Torah it is written, God's friends long for death." al-Burhan notes a fine lexical point from al-Kafi — the Imam's remark that "every za'm (claim) in the Qur'an is a lie," matching the sources' gloss of za'm as a mere assertion.
Verse 8 turns the fear back on them. al-Mizan, Tabarsi and Tusi all read the fa- of "fa-innahu mulaqikum" as the answer to an implied condition — flee or not, death will meet you — and Tabarsi and Qummi both cite the Commander of the Faithful's saying, "every man meets in his flight that from which he flees; the term drives the soul to it, and to flee it is to arrive at it," alongside Zuhayr's verse. al-Mizan draws out the threefold announcement: the futility of fleeing death, the certainty of return for reckoning, and God's total knowledge as Knower of the Unseen and the Witnessed. al-Burhan closes with al-Sadiq's image of the appointed term "counting the years, then the months, then the days, then the breaths" (7:34). The Enlightening Commentary, drawing on al-Mizan, adds Imam 'Ali's own love of death ("dearer to me than a child at its mother's breast").