قَالَ رَبِّى يَعْلَمُ ٱلْقَوْلَ فِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
"He said: 'My Lord knows what is spoken in the heaven and the earth. He is the Hearing, the Knowing.'"
In the third verse there was a whisper. The fourth verse answers it with knowledge — not with content.
I record as my own reading, and its ground is the words of the two verses: the objection was spoken in secret (asarrū'n-najwā); the answer takes aim at the secrecy, not at the substance of the objection. Rabbī yaʿlamu'l-qawl — "my Lord knows what is spoken."
And the scope is given in two words: fi's-samāʾi wa'l-arḍ. The whisper was spoken on earth; the verse names the heaven too. That is, the scale is kept larger than the scale of the whisper.
A variant reading is transmitted: qāla (perfect, "he said") and qul (imperative, "say"). The direction of the sense changes — on the first the answer given by the Prophet is transmitted, on the second he is commanded to give the answer. Both readings are transmitted; I name no reciter and impose no preference. The same disagreement will appear once more in the sūra's last verse (112).
ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ — two attributes: hearing and knowing. And the order is worth recording: hearing first. The subject of the verse is what is spoken; speech is heard first.