They seemed to prefer saying things in roundabout ways like that. Read hadith and seerah and you know how they regularly use via negativa, metaphors and hyperbole, my guess is to invoke emotions.
Reason being? Oral traditions. Muhammad’s crowd in the 7th century didn’t write things down so they had to rely on memorization, and they were good at it. One way to memorize is to tie emotions or story into it. Excitement, awe, sadness, anger etc. Easier to remember what you were excited about, than the same information delivered in a dry, matter-of-fact manner.