Job 42:2

2. Thought מזמה , signifies meditation, thinking, thence purpose or plan, very frequently in a bad sense. Comp. Job 21:27; Psalms 10:2; Psalms 21:12; Proverbs 14:17; Proverbs 24:8; Jeremiah 23:20; Jeremiah 30:24. “Perhaps this ambiguous word is selected designedly, in order to express the thought, that, from the circumscribed nature of Job’s views, the plans of God appeared to him to be bad, while to the Allwise they continued unhindered, and, as they originated from him, the Fountain of all good, they would at length be understood in the most favourable light. The Almighty can prosecute a plan which appears to the human understanding bad, ( mezimmah,) for it is in his power to transform the bad into good.” Umbreit.

Withholden from thee Literally, cut off from thee. Compare Genesis 11:6, where the same word is rendered “restrained.” He whose wondrous plans have been wrought out in the formation of the colossi of the brute creation is also the author of affliction, in whose varied features Job now sees marks of divine wisdom. The divine plan in sorrow impresses him as never before. He sees most vividly that his afflictions came forth from the all powerful, and therefore irresistible, will of God. The power of God is the postulate from which he reasons out to the entire being of Deity. One diameter measures all the other diameters of the same circle: so the possession of one infinite attribute implies that all the other attributes of that Being must be infinite. Hence the stress Job lays on the infinite power of God.