And in the verse that comes after the report about the creation of Adam and its clarification, in His statement (1): {O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I bestowed upon you, and fulfill My covenant that I may fulfill your covenant} [Sūrat al-Baqara: 40], and His addressing them, Exalted be His Mention, to fulfill that specifically, to the exclusion of the rest of humanity (2)—there is that which indicates that His statement: "Who break God's covenant after its ratification" is intended for their disbelievers and their hypocrites, and whoever among their followers from the polytheistic idolaters was upon their misguidance. However, the address—even if it was directed at those whom I described from the two groups—includes within their rulings, and within what God mandated for them of threat, censure, and reprimand, everyone who is upon their path and methodology from among all creation and categories of nations who are addressed with command and prohibition.

So the meaning of the verse, then, is: And He causes none to go astray thereby except those who abandon obedience to God, who depart from following His command and prohibition, who break God's covenants that He covenanted with them in the Books that He sent down to His messengers and upon the tongues of His prophets—to follow the command of His Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) and what he brought, and to obey God in what He obligated upon them in the Torah regarding clarifying his matter to the people, informing them that they find it written with them that he is a messenger from God whose obedience is obligatory, and refraining from concealing that from them (3). Their breaking and violating of that is their opposing God in His covenant to them—in what I described that He covenanted to them—after giving their Lord the solemn covenant to fulfill that. Just as our Lord, Exalted be His Mention, described them in His statement: {Then there succeeded them a generation who inherited the Book, taking the ephemeral goods of this lower world and saying, "It will be forgiven us." And if there came to them ephemeral goods like it, they would take it. Was not the covenant of the Book taken from them that they should not say about God except the truth?} [Sūrat al-Aʿrāf: 169].