Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
Job makes his appeal to God by laying open two ways of meeting in dialogue, either that God should call and he would answer, or that he should be allowed to speak and God answer him. In so asking he longs for God to appear and to explain the reason for his afflictions. The verse stands in that part of Job which sets forth the great problems of overruling providence and of sin and suffering that have perplexed humanity through all ages. Its setting is God disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and declare his sufferings to be because of sin, showing how humanity in the same way misjudges its fellows.
Job makes his appeal to God by laying open two ways of meeting in dialogue, either that God should call and he would answer, or that he should be allowed to speak and God answer him. In so asking he longs for God to appear and to explain the reason for his afflictions. The verse stands in that part of Job which sets forth the great problems of overruling providence and of sin and suffering that have perplexed humanity through all ages. Its setting is God disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and declare his sufferings to be because of sin, showing how humanity in the same way misjudges its fellows.