Job 42:4

hear, I beseech thee Or, hear now, and I will speak. The words are not an entreaty on the part of Job that the Almighty would further instruct him; they are a repetition of the words of the Lord (ch. Job 38:3; Job 40:7). The verse is closely connected with Job 42:5, which suggests under what feeling Job repeats the words of God to him. He recites the divine challenge and puts it away from him "Declare unto thee! (Job 42:4) that be far from me; I had heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee" (Job 42:5). This is more natural than to suppose Job 42:4 uttered with a kind of self-irony, as if Job, in repeating the words of the divine challenge, also entered into the ironical spirit of it. In either case Job 42:5 has a half-apologetic meaning, accounting for Job's former rashness.