I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
Good men come late to owning their faults, though it costs them. God spoke once and Job heard it twice: power belongs to Him alone. Now that truth has gripped him not as doctrine but as judgment upon his own folly in speaking irreverently before the throne.
AI summary
Commenting on Job 42:1-6
Wherefore I abhor myself,.... Or all my words, as Aben Ezra; all the indecent expressions he had uttered concerning God; he could not bear to think of them; he loathed them, and himself on account of them: sin is abominable in its own nature, and makes men so; it is loathsome to God, and so it is to all good men when they see it...
hearing of the ear-- (Psa 18:44, Margin). Hearing and seeing are often in antithesis (Job 29:11; Psa 18:8). seeth--not God's face (Exo 33:20), but His presence in the veil of a dark cloud (Job 38:1). Job implies also that, besides this literal seeing, he now saw spiritually what he had indistinctly taken on hearsay before God's infinite wisdom.