Job 42:4

Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak,.... Not in the manner he had before, complaining of God and justifying himself, but in a way of humble entreaty of favours of him, of confession of sin before

Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

Hear and accept my humble and penitent confession and recantation. I will demand of thee; or, and inquire, to wit, counsel or instruction, as a scholar doth of his master, as the following words note. I will no more saucily dispute the matter with thee, but beg information from thee. The words which God had uttered to Job by way of challenge, 40:7, Job returns to him again in way of submission.

Job 42:4 Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.Ver. 4. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak] We have had his confession; follow now his petition here, his humiliation and reformation, Job 42:6. These are the parts and properties of true repentance, that fair daughter of a foul mother, sin. But had not Job promised to speak no more, to proceed no farther? Job 40:4-5. How then doth he say here, I beseech, and I will speak? The answer is easy; he would speak no more so rashly and unadvisedly as he had done, to God’ s dishonour, and the offence of his best friends. But he would not spare to speak supplications, as here, and to set forth his humble docility, to give glory to God, and to take shame to himself, &c.; such a silence he knew would be sinful, and savour of a dumb devil. He therefore addresseth himself to God, 1. For audience and acceptance; 2. For advice and direction. In all which he renounceth his own wisdom, and delivereth himself up wholly to God, to be taught and led into all truth and holiness. The matter, we see, is well amended with Job, since, challenging God into the schools, he once said, "Then call thou me, and I will answer; or let me speak, and answer thou me," Job 13:22. So afterwards Peter, when penitent, turned his crowing into crying; and Paul, his breathing out threatenings against the saints, into "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Acts 9:1; Acts 9:6. I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me] As a dutiful and docible scholar, who should be Zητητικος, I will ask thee questions, and hang upon thy holy lips for an answer.

(4) Hear, I beseech thee.—This cannot in like manner be appropriately assigned to Job, but, as in Job 38:3; Job 40:7, must be referred to God; then the confession of Job 42:5-6 comes in very grandly. How much of our knowledge of God is merely hearsay? and it is not till the experimental teaching of the Holy Ghost has revealed God to our consciences that we really see Him with the inward eye. The confession of Job, therefore, is the confession of every converted man. Compare in a much later and very different, and yet analogous sphere, the confession of St. Paul (Galatians 1:16).

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.

Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak - This is the language of humble, docile submission.

4. Hear, I beseech… declare thou unto me — δεγιςπι. Literally, make me to know. This verse cites the words of God, (Job 38:3; Job 40:7,) showing the profound impression they had made upon Job.