Matthew Poole and continuators on Job 21:17

17. How oft is the candle of the wicked put out? and how oft cometh their destruction upon them? God distributeth sorrows in his anger.

This Phrase notes, either 1. the rarity and seldomness of it. This, I confess, sometimes happens, but not oft. Or rather 2. the frequency of it; I grant that this happens oft, though not constantly, as you affirm. And this seems best to agree both with the use of this phrase in Scripture, where it notes frequency; as Psalm 78. 40. Matth. 18. 21. Luke 13. 34. and never seldomness; and with the foregoing words, as a reason why the counsel of the wicked was far from him; because they oft times pay dear for it in this life, and always in the next life; and with the following Verses, wherein he discourseth largely not of the prosperity of the Wicked (as he should have done, if the sense of these words were this, that such were but seldom afflicted) but of their Calamities.

Or, lamp; i. e. their glory and outward happiness; as Chap. 18. 6. 2 Sam. 21. 17. Psalm 132. 17.

Who is manifestly understood out of the following words, this being God's work and proceeding from God's anger.

Marginal references: Or, lamp.