The word “village,” for example, sometimes refers to the people, and sometimes to the people’s dwellings.

The Shaykh :“The word ‘village,’ for example, sometimes refers to the people, and sometimes to the people’s dwellings” The same word “village” refers to the people themselves, and it refers to the people’s dwellings, depending on what? Depending on the context.
“From the first category, where it refers to the people, is the saying of Allah the Exalted:

And there is no city but that We will destroy it before the Day of Resurrection or punish it with a severe punishment

وإن من قرية إلا نحن مهلكوها قبل يوم القيامة أو معذبوها عذاباً شديداً

[Al-Isra 17:58]

” That is, there is no village that denies the messengers except that judgment is executed upon it, either by destruction and annihilation, or by severe punishment, which takes the form of wars, fears, and the like. There is no doubt that the intended meaning here is the people, not the village itself. Similarly, the saying of Allah the Exalted: What is meant by the village? The people, because the people’s dwellings are not described with this description. If someone were to say that the intended meaning of the village here is the dwellings, we would say that the wording rejects this, and that would be a distortion of the meaning. Dwellings cannot be oppressive. Is that clear? Good.
“And from the second category is the saying of Allah the Exalted regarding the angels who were guests of Ibrahim:

Indeed, we will destroy the people of that Lot's city

إنا مهلكوا أهل هذه القرية

[Al-'Ankabut 29:31]

” Here, you cannot say that the intended meaning of the village is the inhabitants, because he attached the inhabitants to the village. So the intended meaning of the village here is the dwellings. My brothers, “We are going to destroy the people of this village”—the intended meaning is the dwellings, not the inhabitants. If a person wanted to say that the intended meaning is the inhabitants, we would say the speech does not hold together: “We are going to destroy the people of the people”—that does not hold together. So it is now clear that the apparent meaning of the speech differs according to the context and the indicators, and that the word in its context and indicators is a reality in that meaning, due to the presence of the indicator that diverts from the first meaning.