John Trapp on Job 12:14

Verſe 14. Beheld, he breaketh down, and it connot be built again] As he did the old world, Sodom and Gomorrah, many Monarchies and Empires, the Tower of Babel, and other caſtles and houſes which now live by fame only, If at all. If God have a mind to mine theſe, who ſhall raiſe or repair them? Julian the Apoſtate, in ſpite to the Chriſtians,Am. Marcel. lib. 23. Socrat. 3. Theod. Ruffin. ſet the Jewes awork to reedifie the Temple at Jeruſalem, but they could never effect it, by reaſon of a terrible earth-quake, that ſlew the workmen, and marred the materials. The Arian Biſhops held a ſecond Council at Nice, with purpoſe to have aboliſhed the memory of the firſt, together with the Nicene Creed,Func. and to have eſtabliſhed Arianiſm: but God diſappointed them, and ſent them packing thence by a huge earth-quake, which overturned a great part of that city, and deſtroyed a number of people. Constans Nephew to Heraclius the Greek Emperour,Theophanes. Zonaras. Cedrenus. Job. de Columnae in Mari historiarum. Gen. Chronol. and (three hundred years after him) Othe Emperour of Germany, indeavoured, but in vain, to make Rome the ſeat of their Empires, as anciently it had been. God would not ſuffer it ſo to be, ſaith Genebrard, becauſe the Kingdom of the Church, foretold by Daniel, was to have its ſeat there. If he had ſaid, the kingdome of Antichriſt foretold by Paul, and John the Divine, he had hit the nail on the very head.

He ſhutteth up a man, and there can be no opening] He clappeth him up cloſe priſoner, as Manaſſeh, Zedekiah, Bajazet, Boniface the 8. &c) or faſteneth him to his bed by ſome chronical diſeaſe (as he did Abimelech, Ahaziab, Aſa, Aeneas, Acts 9.33.) or otherwiſe ſtraiteneth him that he knows not how to help himſelf, as he did Pharaoh, Saul (when the Philiſtims were upon him of every ſide) thoſe refractaries in Iſaiah, chap. 9.2. and ſhall do the whore of Babylon, Rev. 18. when her lovers ſhall bewail her, but not be able to beſtead her, ver. 9, 10. For when God ſhutteth up any in this ſort, they muſt lie by it till he pleaſe to releaſe them, and extricate them, as he did Joſeph Jehoſhaphat, David, Peter, Valentinian. and many others, when they were even forſaken of their hopes.