Transliteration:( Wal malaku 'alaaa arjaaa'ihaa; wa yahmilu 'Arsha Rabbika fawqahum yawma'izin samaaniyah )
"And the angels shall be standing [18] on the sides thereof, and above them shall be eight angels [19] carrying the Throne of your Lord, above them."
In this verse, Allah describes the scene of the Day of Judgement when the heavenly angels will stand on the sides of the split sky. As the natural order collapses, the angels will take their positions in preparation for the events to unfold. These angels will descend to the earth, as per the divine command, enclosing it as part of the dramatic changes occurring during the final reckoning.
The verse further mentions that eight angels will carry the Throne of Allah. Previously, there were only four angels who bore the Throne, but on the Day of Judgement, this number will increase to eight. While the exact wisdom behind this change is known only to Allah, one explanation is that the additional four angels symbolize the revelation of new divine qualities of Allah that will be displayed on the Day of Judgement. These new qualities include excellence, grandeur, and justice, complementing the four attributes of Allah that have already been apparent in the world.
The tafsir of Surah Al-Haqqah verse 17 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Haqqah ayat 13 which provides the complete commentary from verse 13 through 18.
(69:17) and the angels will stand on the sides, with eight of them bearing aloft the Throne[11] of your Lord on that Day.
11. This is an ambiguous verse the meaning of which is difficult to determine. We can neither know what the Throne is nor can understand what will be the nature of the eight angels upholding it on the Day of Resurrection. It is, however inconceivable that Allah Almighty would be sitting on the Throne and the eight angels would be upholding it along with Him. The verse also does not say that Allah at that time would be sitting on the Throne. Besides, the conception of God that the Quran gives also prevents one from imagining that the Being Who is free from physical existence as to body, direction and place, should be residing somewhere and His creatures should sustain Him. Therefore, pursuing any research to determine its meaning would be tantamount to disbelief. However, one should understand that in order to give an idea of Allah Almighty’s rule and sovereignty, and of the matters associated with it, the same scene has been depicted by the Quran as of worldly kingship and the same terms have been used for it as are common for kingship and its accompaniments in order to enable us to understand matters pertaining to sovereignty of the universe to some extent only by means of this very scene and terms. All this is meant to bring the real Truth within human understanding; it is not, therefore, right to take it literally.
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