17 "Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?
17 "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God
17 "Still, how often does it happen that the wicked fail, or disaster strikes, or they get their just deserts?
17 "How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does their destruction come upon them, The sorrows God distributes in His anger?
17 "Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished. Do they ever have trouble? Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 21:17
Commentary on Job 21:17-26
(Read Job 21:17-26)
Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about.