COMMENTARY on 4:159
Mustafa Khattab:

Translation:
Every one of the People of the Book will definitely believe in him before his death.47 And on the Day of Judgment Jesus will be a witness against them.
Commentary:
47   Scholars disagree whether Jews and Christians will come to realize that Jesus is a prophet of Allah at the time of their death or before the death of Jesus after his second coming.

 

A. Yusuf Ali:

Translation:
And there is none of the People of the Book but must believe in him before his death; 665 and on the Day of Judgment he will be a witness 666 against them;-
Commentary:

665  Before his death. Interpreters are not agreed as to the exact meaning. Those who hold that Jesus did not die (see last note) refer the pronoun "his" to Jesus. They say that Jesus is still living in the body and that he will appear just before the Final Day, after the coming of the Mahdi, when the world will be purified of sin and unbelief. There will be a final death before the final Resurrection, but all will have believed before that final death. Others think that "his" is better referred to "none of the People of the Book", and that the emphatic form "must believe" (layu'minanna) denotes more a question of duty than of fact. (R).

666  Cf. 4:41 .

 

Muhammad Asad:

Translation:
Yet there is not one of the followers of earlier revelation who does not, at the moment of his death, grasp the truth about Jesus; 173 and on the Day of Resurrection he [himself] shall bear witness to the truth against them.
Commentary:
173  Lit., "who does not believe in him before his death". According to this verse, all believing Jews and Christians realize at the moment of their death that Jesus was truly a prophet of God - having been neither an impostor nor "the son of God" (Zamakhshari).