Allusion to the flood

[Job 12:14] Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
[14-15 Evidence for the disastrous violence of the flood is found not only in the Bible but also in geological features all over the globe. 2 Peter 3:6 says: “the world (cosmos) that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” This earth-changing, destructive physical cataclysm was well-remembered in traditions all over the world, including the ancestral traditions of Job and his friends.
He breaketh down - He alone can create, and He alone can destroy. Nothing can be annihilated but by the same Power that created it. This is a most remarkable fact. No power, skill, or cunning of man can annihilate the smallest particle of matter. Man, by chemical agency, may change its form; but to reduce it to nothing belongs to G-d alone. In the course of His providence G-d breaks down, so that it cannot be built up again. See proofs of this in the total political destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and other cities, which have broken down never to be rebuilt; as well as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman empires, which have been dismembered and almost annihilated, never more to be regenerated.
He shutteth up a man - when the appointed time came, Noah went into the ark and the L-rd shut him in (Gen. 6:16), and it could not be opened until the earth had been overturned by the great waters.
No opening - Without G-d's permission. Yea, He shuts up in the grave, and none can break open those sealed doors. He shuts up in hell, in chains of darkness, and none can pass that great gulf.][15] Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
[The waters - Which are reserved it’s the clouds, that they may not fall upon the earth.
They - The waters upon the earth, springs, and brooks, and rivers. As at the time of the general deluge, to which here is a manifest allusion.
Dry up - refer to the “waters….above the firmament” that were established on the third day of creation, resulting in a ‘greenhouse effect’ that made rain impossible in the primeval word (Gen. 19; 2:6). Let the waters be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. Thus the earth was drained, and the waters collected into seas, and bound to their particular places. This global water blanket, water vapor, was withheld from the earth until the Father used it to ‘overturn the earth’ in the days of Noah.
He send them out - Here is also an allusion to the flood, for when he broke up the fountains of the great deep, then the earth was overturned.
G-d has the command of the waters, binds them as in a garment (Proverbs 30:4), holds them in the hollow of His hand (Isaiah 40:12); and He can punish the children of men either by the defect or by the excess of them. As men break the laws of virtue by extremes on each hand, both defects and excesses, while virtue is in the mean, so
G-d corrects them by extremes, and denies them the mercy which is in the mean.
1. Great droughts are sometimes great judgments: He withholds the waters, and they dry up; if the heaven be as brass, the earth is as iron; if the rain be denied, fountains dry up and their streams are wanted, fields are parched and their fruits are wanted, Amos 4:7.
2. Great wet is sometimes a great judgment. He raises the waters, and overturns the earth, the productions of it, and the buildings upon it. A sweeping rain is said to leave no food, Proverbs 28:3 See how many ways G- has of contending with a sinful people and taking from them abused, forfeited, mercies; and how utterly unable we are to contend with Hi. If we might invert the order, would fitly refer to Noah's flood, that ever memorable instance of the divine power. G-d then, in wrath, sent the waters out, and they overturned the earth; but in mercy He withheld them, shut the windows of heaven and the fountains of the great deep, and then, in a little time, they dried up.]
Don’t break the laws of virtue and you will not be found drowning.