And when He negated play from Him, He followed it with His proof and said: ﴿If We had intended﴾ meaning [in relation to] Our greatness ﴿to take a pastime﴾ that would be for us and attributed in its play to us. And play - Al-Asfahani said: is the diversion of concern from the self with something vile.

﴿We would have taken it﴾ meaning by virtue of Our greatness ﴿from Us﴾ meaning from what is fitting to be attributed to Our Presence by virtue of Our complete power and the perfection of greatness, and the overwhelming majesty and wisdom. And that is because it would be purely play with no seriousness in it at all, nor would anything of impurity mix with it. (p-399) And one would not hesitate to call it play, nor would it have any other name with Him, just as if another sun were found, no one would hesitate to call it a sun, as He, the Exalted, said in the previous surah: ﴿And We have certainly given you from Us a reminder﴾ [Ta-Ha: 99] meaning it is such that no one would hesitate to say that it is from Us, and that it is a reminder and a lesson as mentioned before. But We did not intend that, so it was not, and what you have taken as play, indeed We created it for other than that, as evidenced by what is in it of distractions, annoyances, and interruptions. So you have taken it as play from yourselves, and most of it has been harmful to you and a source of evil upon you.

And Al-Harali specified “from” with what is apparent, and “from Us” with what is hidden. Thus, the intended meaning would be: from Our special Presence that is hidden, which none knows except Us, because what belongs to the King is not to be trivialized. And likewise, He did not mention except what the deniers of resurrection would realize in seeing it, so He unified the heavens here and gathered them in other than this context due to the necessity of the situation.

And when this is something that should be exalted from the Sacred Presence, even from mere mention of it, even hypothetically, He indicated that with another conditional tool and said: ﴿If We were to act﴾ meaning for Him, but it is not fitting for Our Majesty, so We did not do it and We will not be acting for it.