Comment: A ‘therefore’ depends on what has gone before! If you are a regular reader refer back in your mind or on your tablet to yesterday’s devotional for the context of today. In quick summary it was God’s reasoning in what justified His ‘therefore’.
25 Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, * and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked;
and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. Comment: I think that the first part of this sentence is looking back and from where I have inserted the asterisk taking a step into a future event (future from the time of writing, but for us it is in the past!) and the looking at the result of this coming event!
26 He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come!
27 None is weary, none stumbles,
none slumbers or sleeps,
not a waistband is loose,
not a sandal strap broken;
28 their arrows are sharp,
all their bows bent,
their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,
and their wheels like the whirlwind.
29 Their roaring is like a lion,
like young lions they roar;
they growl and seize their prey;
they carry it off, and none can rescue. Comment: A very powerful description of a self-confident powerful army expecting and executing a magnificent victory .
30 They will growl over it on that day, like the growling of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened by its clouds. Comment: Historically after this God’s people were overthrown by the Assyrian army. God used people who did not follow Him to punish those who were supposed to follow Him. In their cruelty they also came to know the judgement of God!
Proverbs 17: 15 (ESV) 15 He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
Prayer: Help me, O Lord, to hear You speaking to me not just to ‘them, others’ when I read Your Word.
As I read it! 