For {e} enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:

(e) He wills Job to examine all antiquity and he will find it true which he here says.

Wesley's Notes

8:8 Search - Seriously and industriously search the ancient records.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. The sages of the olden time reached an age beyond those of Job's time (see on [497]Job 42:16), and therefore could give the testimony of a fuller experience.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:8-19 Bildad discourses well of hypocrites and evil-doers, and the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth of the destruction of the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to former times. Bildad refers to the testimony of the ancients. Those teach best that utter words out of their heart, that speak from an experience of spiritual and divine things. A rush growing in fenny ground, looking very green, but withering in dry weather, represents the hypocrite's profession, which is maintained only in times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill, but easily swept away, represents a man's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God in his heart. A formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not of his salvation, is secure, and cheats the world with his vain confidences. The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking root to the rock, yet after a time cut down and thrown aside, represents wicked men, when most firmly established, suddenly thrown down and forgotten. This doctrine of the vanity of a hypocrite's confidence, or the prosperity of a wicked man, is sound; but it was not applicable to the case of Job, if confined to the present world.