Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
Ver. 15. Hast thou, marked the old way] Heb. The way of old. Broughton rendereth it, the way of the old world; of those ungodly ones before the flood. Hereby it appeareth, say our learned annotators, that Job lived before the deliverance out of Egypt, because he mentioneth the creation and the flood, but not the deliverance; which, had he known, it would have afforded him an excellent argument to prove that godly men might be in great affliction, as the Israelites were in Egypt; and his friends a plausible argument that God useth to destroy wicked men for their sin, as he did the Egyptians in the Red Sea.
Which wicked men have trodden?] Heb. Mortals of iniquity or vanity. Viri nequam et nequaquam, vel nihili, Men of wickedness with a witness. The face of the old world was grown so foul, that God was fain to wash it with a flood. All was out of order in family, State, and Church. In the family was found luxury and unlawful marriages. In the State tyranny, violence, rapacity, and injustice. In the Church contempt of God's word, and a fond opinion that God did not order all by his providence, but that a man might do well enough without him. Now that this was the opinion of those antediluvian Belialists, some have gathered from this text, which they read thus, Wilt thou follow the old way; that is, the tenet of those old sinners against their own souls, whom God, for their damnable security and licentiousness (the products of such a portentous opinion), buried all together in one universal grave of waters?