Why is 'they will come to know' repeated twice in Surah An-Naba?
Answer
The two verses 'Kallā sayaʿlamūn' (78:4) and 'Thumma kallā sayaʿlamūn' (78:5) say almost the same thing on purpose. In Arabic this kind of repetition is a recognised device for emphasis (taʾkīd) — it doubles the weight of what is said. Classical commentators such as al-Saʿdī and Ibn Kathīr explain that the second verse repeats the first to redouble the warning to those who denied the resurrection, so they could not brush it off as a passing remark. The added word 'Thumma' ('then,' 'again') does not announce a new event; it lays a second wave of warning over the first, so the certainty of the reckoning lands twice. A minority reading recorded by al-Ṭabarī and al-Qurṭubī took the two phrases to address different audiences, but the stronger reading is that both verses warn the same deniers with mounting force. Yet notice what the doubling is actually doing — and notice that it is being done for you, while you can still hear it. A warning said once can be missed; a warning said twice is the act of someone who refuses to let you be caught unaware. God does not repeat Himself because His threat is weak — He repeats Himself because His mercy is patient. The first 'they will come to know' is the truth stated; the second is the door held open a moment longer, a second chance to hear before the page turns. Read this way, the heaviness is not cruelty but care: the same Lord who could have said it once, and let the heedless sleep through it, says it again so that no one stumbles into that Day pleading they were never told.
Qur’anic evidence — read the full study of 78:4 →
In more depth
Feel what the unnamed object of 'they will know' does to you even now. The Qur'an withholds the thing they will come to know, and the silence makes the heart lean forward — because some part of you already suspects what is being withheld. That instinct, that a Day is real and the account is not imaginary, is not dread the verse invents; it is recognition the verse uncovers, the God-given knowing already set inside you. He says it twice because part of you knew it once. And the surah does not leave you there: from this warning it turns to the plain signs of His care — the earth spread out as a resting place, the mountains set firm as pegs (78:6-7) — and lands, near its close, not on a threat but on an open road: 'That is the True Day; so he who wills may take to his Lord a way of return' (78:39). The warning was repeated so the invitation would still find you in time. The road back is open while you are still the one being warned — and that is the whole reason He said it twice.