God's absolute awareness of human behavior allows for swift and undeniable justice. Because He sees and knows everything, He requires no investigations, trials, or debates to understand the true nature of the wicked. Instead, His perfect oversight leads to sudden and absolute destruction for those who do wrong.
The primary approach among commentators is that God intimately knows all human deeds, whether good or bad. Armed with this perfect awareness, He delivers immediate and fitting punishment to the wicked without needing any additional proof [רש״י, תקות אנוש, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Taking a different angle, some explain that God acts specifically to expose these hidden, evil actions, bringing them into the light for other people to see [מלבי״ם]. This divine response is directly tied to the continuous effort people invest in their behavior; the punishment they receive is simply the natural fruit of their own hard labor [מלבי״ם].
When this judgment arrives, it brings a profound and sudden reversal of fortune. Many view this as a metaphor, where God takes the bright success and prosperity of the wicked and plunges it into a night of darkness and deep trouble [רש״י, אבן עזרא, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Others focus strictly on the speed of the punishment, noting that God can completely tear down the corrupt and put others in their place over the course of a single night [מצודת דוד, מלבי״ם]. Highlighting this extreme suddenness, some explain that disaster strikes the wicked in the blink of an eye, happening in the exact, immeasurable fraction of a second when day shifts into night [תקות אנוש].
From a historical perspective, this concept of a sudden, nighttime downfall is connected to the Plague of the Firstborn in Egypt. Astrologically, the night of the fifteenth of Nissan was supposed to favor and protect the Egyptians. However, because they had cruelly intensified their enslavement of the Israelites, God completely overturned their expectations, transforming that specific night into a time of devastating ruin [אלשיך]. Ultimately, the result of God's swift justice is final. The wicked are entirely broken, crushed, and wiped from the face of the earth [מצודת ציון, מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ].