Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
Ver. 27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks] Mercer here observeth an elegant gradation in God's proceeding with Job, as himself describeth it, rising higher and higher in his discourse. 1. God hid his face, and denied him his favour. 2. He counted him as his enemy. 3. He broke him like a leaf or stubble. 4. He wrote bitter things against him. 5. He made him possess the sins of his youth. 6. For his young sins he claps him up close prisoner now in his old age, and there keeps him as with a strict guard following him close at heels if he but stir a foot. Was there ever sorrow like unto Job's sorrow? was ever greater severity and rigour showed upon any godly person? Where, then, shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? &c. God's wrath is like Elijah's cloud, little at first, as a man's hand, but soon after very dismal and dreadful; or as thunder, of which we hear at first a little noise afar off, but soon after a terrible crack. Well might Moses say, "Who knoweth the power of thine anger?" Psalms 90:11, Cavebis autem, si pavebis. You will beware if you will be frightened.
And lookest narrowly into all my paths] He saith not ways, but paths. Gregory maketh this difference: ways are larger, paths narrower. God then is said to look into all men's paths, when he looketh not only at the evil done by them, but at the intention of their mind, which is not so easily discerned but by him, the searcher of all hearts. And for that which followeth,
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet] Gregory here observeth, that God looketh at the hurt done to others by examples given by men's evil doings unto them, leaving a print upon the ground, as it were, whereby others follow them, and so their sin is in this regard made the greater; to which purpose some sense those words, Psalms 49:5, "When the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about." Others make Job's meaning here to be, Thou followest me with continual pursuit, as a prisoner that is dogged at heels by his keeper from place to place, lest he should escape. Thou followest me close, and upon the track, like a hunter, Job 10:16. The footsteps of thy wrath (saith an interpreter) are seen upon the soles of my feet (so that from top to toe I have no free part), like as prisoners' feet are oft swelled with the weight of their fetters.