The task of the unnamed messenger in this sūra is to warn humankind of the destruction to come if they do not heed the “signs” of Allah. The sūra contains a series of stories about messengers in the past that illustrate divine destruction of those who denied the signs. These stories seem to lead up to a long story about Moses and the Children of Israel.

Many messenger stories seem to follow a pattern in which each people resists the preaching of its messenger until Allah destroys the people and saves the messenger and his followers. The Adam story in this sūra does not follow this pattern. But the long Moses story, after offering many details, ultimately ends with destruction of the unbelievers by Allah. Moses emerges here as the exemplary prophet of the Quran.

In the middle of the Moses story, the Quran instructs the messenger to declare, “People! Surely I am the messenger of Allah to you,” and to command belief not only in Allah, but also in his messenger (v. 158). The passage also declares that an “ ummī prophet” (“prophet of the common people”) would be found written “in their Torah and Gospel” (v. 157).