ذَلِكَ بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَيْسَ بِظَلَّامٍ لِّلْعَبِيدِ
That is because of what your hands have sent ahead, and because Allah is not tyrannical to His servants.’
Agha Ali Puya Commentary
Commentary on Quran 3:182
[Pooya/Ali Commentary 3:182] Allah is not unjust to any of His creatures. Punishment is only an outcome of the culprit's own doings. In this connection refer to Ha Mim Sajdah: 46; Jathiyah: 15 and Zilzal: 7 and 8. (183) "And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the whole-offering." (Leviticus 9: 23 and 24). Also refer to John 13: 20 to 23; the First book of King 18: 38; The first book of the Chronicles 21: 26; The second book of the Chronicles 7: 1. Fire was regarded by the Jews "as one of the agents of divine will", and divine fire was expected to consume the acceptable offering. In the ancient Jewish religion and many others fire is the means whereby offerings are transmitted to the deity. And it was also perhaps this deep-rooted superstition that led the Jews of later times to offer their children as sacrifice to Molch, the god of fire. So, the Jews said to the Holy Prophet that God had charged them to believe in no prophet until he works this miracle. Firstly Allah's power may not always manifest through one and the same miracle, because the intellect and the temperament of the people have been undergoing a constant change in upward direction. The appearance of fire to consume sacrifices offered was only suitable to the intellect of the Jews of the ancient times. In Islam, the final, perfected and completed religion of Allah, God is beneficent and merciful, and so in all accounts where a manifestation of Allah is spoken of allegorically, He is represented as light (nur), never as fire. It is stated in verse 35 of al Nur that the glow is without fire-no fire has touched it (light upon light). It is not the meat or blood of the sacrificed animals that reaches Allah. It is the fealty of your heart that reaches Him (Hajj: 37). Secondly, if it was the working of this particular miracle that could generate belief in the Jews, and their hesitating and refusing to believe in the Holy Prophet was on account of it, why then did they refuse to believe in those prophets who had wrought it (among other miracles), and even impetuously murdered them!