And Job spake, and said,
Ver. 2. And Job spake, and said] Heb. Answered and said. Answered? Whom answered he? The Jewish doctors say, he answered his friends, who having hitherto said nothing to him, and heard as little from him, at length - rupere silentia voce, to destroy a silent voice, and asked him what he ailed? others more probably conceive that Job answered here to some dispute in his own mind, or rather with the devil. Some take this verse for a transition only. Others make it a preparation for Job's future discourse, to move expectation, and win attention. The discourse indeed is all along, to Job 42:7, poetical, and very accurate, made up in hexameters (as Jerome holdeth), not by Job and his friends at the first uttering, but afterwards by Job at better leisure; or, as some think, by Moses whilst a shepherd in Midian, for the comfort of his poor countrymen in Egypt, Sic et Ionas orationem suam in ventre balaenae habitam, et David plerosque Psalmos, &c. Mercer saith that his predecessor Vatablus (as he had heard) had found out a way of scanning these hexameters to others unknown, and to all the more obscure, because the verse causeth a cloud. The first hexameter that ever was made in Greek is said to be this,
Sυμφερετε πτερατ οιωνοι κηρον τε μελισσαι .
Birds, bring your plumes, and bees, your wax at once.