Job 21:29

Have ye not asked them that go by the way?.... Did you not ask every traveller you met with on the road the above question?

Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens, Job, seeing that the friends will not admit him as an impartial judge, as they consider his calamities prove his guilt,

These are the words, either, 1. Of Job’ s friends, who thus continue their former discourse by a second inquiry; or rather, 2. Of Job himself, who answers one question with another. You may learn this, which is the matter of our debate, to wit, that good men are oft afflicted, and that wicked men do commonly live and die in great prosperity, and are not punished in this world, even from them that go by the way, i.e. either from travellers, who having seen and observed many persons, and places, and events, are more capable judges of this matter; or from any person that passeth along the high-way, from every one that you meet with. It is so vulgar and trivial a thing, that no man of common sense is ignorant of it. Their tokens, i.e. the examples, or evidences, or signs of this truth, which they that go by the way can produce. They will show here and there in divers places the goodly houses, and castles, and other monuments of power and dignity which wicked potentates have erected, and to this day do possess, and in which divers of them live and die. He alludes here to those tokens which are set up in high-ways for the direction of those who travel in them.

Job 21:29 Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens,Ver. 29. Have ye not asked them that go by the way?] The cause of their rash judgment, Job showeth here to be their ignorance of things known to every ordinary passenger, and such as whereof there are many pregnant proofs and examples everywhere. Some, by them that go by the way, understand men by experience, such as have gone many voyages, &c., made many observations in their travels of things remarkable; their notes are here called their tokens. By those that go by the way, others understand Abraham, the Hebrew (so he is called, Genesis 14:13 that is, that Trans-Euphratean, or, he that passed over the river Euphrates, when he passed by the way from Chaldea to Canaan), and his progeny, Isaac and Jacob, who were passengers and pilgrims, and could tell, by experience, that men greatly afflicted may be yet favoured of God, and in due time delivered. Abraham had ten sore trials, and yet was the friend of God. Isaac, besides many other sharp afflictions all along his pilgrimage, was blind for over twenty years before his death. Few and evil were the days of the years of Jacob, his whole life almost one continuous affliction, and yet it was, Jacob have I loved. Of all this Job likely was not ignorant, and why should his friends? And do ye not know their tokens?] Or, Their tokens you shall not be estranged from. Broughton thus, So ye would not make their signs strange. There will be so much evidence of truth in what they say, that you will not be able to gainsay it.

(29) Their tokens—i.e., the marks and evidences of their experience, and the conclusions at which they had arrived.

Verse 29. Have ye not asked them that go by the way?] This appears to be Job's answer. Consult travellers who have gone through different countries; and they will tell you that they have seen both examples - the wicked in great prosperity in some instances, while suddenly destroyed in others. See at the end of the chapter. See Clarke on Job 21:34. Do ye not know their tokens] Mr. Good translates the whole verse thus: "Surely thou canst never have inquired of men of travel; or thou couldst not have been ignorant of their tokens. Hadst thou made proper inquiries, thou wouldst have heard of their awful end in a thousand instances. And also of their prosperity." See at the end of this chapter. See Clarke on Job 21:34.

27–34. Finally, still pursuing his argument, Job turns to the insinuations of his friends against himself, which lie under their descriptions of the fate of the wicked. He knows what they mean when they say, Where is the house of the prince? But their conclusions were against the testimony of those who had travelled far and seen much. These testified that the wicked man was preserved in the day of destruction; that he came to an honoured grave, and the clods of the valley lay softly on him; and that his example, so far from being shunned, was followed by the mass of men, as there were multitudes that preceded him in the way he walked.

Have ye not asked them that go by the way? - Travelers, who have passed into other countries, and who have had an opportunity of making observations, and of learning the opinions of those residing there.

29. Them that go by the way — “Wayfaring men,” who travelled largely, probably in connexion with caravans. Such travellers became popular intelligencers, and were often sent for and consulted by kings.