The Quran

Preface

فَمَن لَم يَجِد فَصِيامُ شَهرَينِ مُتَتابِعَينِ مِن قَبلِ أَن يَتَماسّا ۖ فَمَن لَم يَستَطِع فَإِطعامُ سِتّينَ مِسكينًا ۚ ذٰلِكَ لِتُؤمِنوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسولِهِ ۚ وَتِلكَ حُدودُ اللَّهِ ۗ وَلِلكافِرينَ عَذابٌ أَليمٌ

Yusuf Ali

And if any has not (the wherewithal),¹ he should fast for two months consecutively before they touch each other. But if any is unable to do so, he should feed sixty indigent ones.² This, that ye may show your faith in God³ and His Messenger. Those are limits (set by) God. For those who reject (Him), there is a grievous Penalty.⁴

Cf. 4:92. The penalty is: to get a slave his freedom, whether it is your own slave or you purchase his freedom from another; if that is not possible, to fast for two months consecutively (in the manner of the Ramadān fast); if that is not possible, to feed sixty poor. See next note.
There is a great deal of learned argument among the jurists as to the precise requirements of Canon Law under the term “feeding” the indigent. For example, it is laid down that half a Sa' of wheat or a full Sa' of dates or their equivalent in money would fulfil the requirements, a Sa' being a measure corresponding roughly to about 9 lbs. of wheat in weight. Others hold that a Mudd measure equivalent to about 2 1/4 lbs. would be sufficient. This would certainly be nearer the daily ration of a man. It is better to take the spirit of the text in its plain simplicity, and say that an indigent man should be given enough to eat for two meals a day. The sixty indigent ones fed for a day would be equivalent to a single individual fed for sixty days, or two for thirty days, and so on. But there is no need to go into minutiae in such matters.
These penalties in the alternative are prescribed, that we may show our repentance and Faith and our renunciation of “iniquity and falsehood” (verse 2 above), whatever our circumstances may be.
It would seem that this refers to the spiritual Penalty in the Hereafter for not complying with the small penalty here prescribed. The next verse would then refer to the bigger “humiliating Penalty” for “resistance” to God’s Law generally.