Tafsir Ibn Abbas: Al-Baqara, Ayah 87

And We gave Moses the Scripture the Torah and after him We sent successive messengers that is We sent them one after another and We gave Jesus son of Mary the clear proofs that is the miracles of bringing the dead back to life and healing the blind and the leper and We confirmed him We strengthened him with the Holy Spirit the expression rūh al-qudus is an example of annexing in a genitive construction the noun described to the adjective qualifying it in other words al-rūh al-muqaddasa that is Gabriel so described on account of his Jesus’s sanctity; he would accompany him Jesus wherever he went; still you refuse to be upright and whenever there came to you a messenger with what your souls did not desire did not like in the way of truth you became arrogant you disdained to follow him istakbartum ‘you became arrogant’ is the response to the particle kullamā ‘whenever’ and constitutes the interrogative and is meant as a rebuke; and some of them you called liars such as Jesus and some you slay? such as Zachariah and John the present tenses of these verbs are used to narrate the past events as though they were events in the present in other words ‘and some you slew’.