Job 21:17
How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and he shall distribute the sorrows of his wrath?
Open Job 21:17 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoties lucerna impiorum extinguetur, et superveniet eis inundatio, et dolores dividet furoris sui ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὐ μὴν δὲ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀσεβῶν λύχνος σβεσθήσεται, ἐπελεύσεται δὲ αὐτοῖς ἡ καταστροφή, ὠδῖνες δὲ ἕξουσιν αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ ὀργῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כַּמָּ֤ה נֵר רְשָׁ֘עִ֤ים יִדְעָ֗ךְ וְיָבֹ֣א עָלֵ֣ימוֹ אֵידָ֑ם חֲ֝בָלִ֗ים יְחַלֵּ֥ק בְּאַפּֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
How often. When do we witness the downfall of the wicked? (Mercer.)
Or, in a contrary sense, how often are they miserable as well as the just? Such things are, therefore, a very equivocal argument, to prove either side of the question. Those who are afflicted, and cling closer to God, must be accounted virtuous and happy; while that prosperity is fatal which is an occasion of our neglecting his service. (Calmet)
Job answers his own questions, ver. 7. If the wicked be happy for a time, their future state is deplorable, and often they forfeit even their temporal advantages. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter XII. To prevent any one from being checked in the exercise of mercy, he shows that God cares for human actions; and proves on the evidence of Job that all wicked men are unhappy in the very abundance of their wealth
44. How many years before these did Job live! He was the first to discover this, and to consider what excuses had to be made for this, not for the sake of decking out his eloquence, but for the sake of finding out the truth. At once he made the matter plain, stating that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their destruction will come; that God, the teacher of wisdom and instruction, is not deceived, but is a judge of the truth. Therefore the blessedness of individuals must not be estimated at the value of their known wealth, but according to the voice of their conscience within them. For this, as a true and uncorrupted judge of punishments and rewards, decides between the deserts of the innocent and the guilty. The innocent man dies in the strength of his own simplicity, in the full possession of his own will; having a soul filled as it were with marrow. …