COMMENTARY on 37:169
A. Yusuf Ali:

Translation:
"We should certainly have been Servants of Allah, 4137 sincere (and devoted)!"
Commentary:

4137  Such men take refuge in ancestral tradition. If our forefathers had had an inkling of Revelation or miracles, or had worshipped as we are now taught to worship, we should gladly have accepted. Or if they had had anything of the miracles which other nations of old are said to have received, we could then have accepted.' But now stronger and more convincing proofs have come to them in the Qur'an in their own tongue, and they doubt and reject it.