Few things in the ancient world were any more terrifying than enemy armies encamped at the gates and walls of your city. To set a throne at someone’s gate meant you were not merely passing through. Rather, you had come to stay. You intended a total occupation. There would be no reprieve. When Judah’s enemies came against them, the destruction they wrought would be thorough.
What was perhaps most terrifying was not merely that Judah’s dreaded enemies had come against them, but that God was the One who had summoned them. Typically the people of Judah would cry out to God for deliverance when their enemies invaded the land. But who could they call out to if their own God was the One who had brought their calamity upon them? When your God is allied with your enemy, what hope do you have?
The people of Judah had taken God for granted. They assumed He was available at their beck and call. They thought they could ignore God until they had a need of Him. They believed that no matter how irreverently they behaved, God would always forgive them and come to their aid. They were about to learn the devastating truth that you cannot take God for granted. If you do, a time will come when calamity strikes, and God is found with your enemy, rather than with you.