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Job_28:7 [There is] a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen:
Ver. 7. There is a path which no fowl knoweth] That is, say some, those places where this gold lieth are so barren, as they bring forth nothing else but gold, nothing for fowls to feed upon, no, not discernible by the eye of the vulture, which excelleth in seeing afar off, and smelleth out his prey at a very great distance (Albert. Dionys. Aquin.). But men make their ways even here, to dig and find out gold, being herein more perspicacious and sagacious than the very vultures. The covetous would do well to consider, saith a good author, that for the most part those countries that are furnished with gold are destitute of better provision, both temporal and spiritual; that it lieth furthest from heaven, and the best of it in India, furthest from the Church; that though Adam had it in the first paradise, Gen_2:11-12, yet in the second we shall not need it; but God shall be our gold, and we shall have plenty of that which is better than silver, Job_22:25. That wise men have esteemed it as the stones of the streets, 2Ch_9:27, and that the children of wisdom might not possess it in their purses, Mat_10:9; that wicked men have the most of it as their portion, Psa_17:14, and that the devil danceth in rich and pleasant palaces, Isa_13:21-22, &c.
And which the vulture’s eye hath not seen] Or, the kite’s eye, or the pie’s, or the chough’s, which yet is said to be sitiens auri, desirous of gold, and to hide it when she hath gotten it, though she can make no use of it. Some good interpreters by this path in the text understand the mines themselves, those underground places, as far underground as the fowls fly above ground; and that are by them and the most prey seeking beasts unknown and untrod; yet thither goeth the miners, by his skill and industry, letting in both light and vital air, Quem follibus arte mirifica e sublimi deducit, ut respirent artifices, et alantur lucernae, which with wonderful art he by bellows bringeth from above into those low holes, that the workmen may breathe, and the lights may be kept burning.