The coming of God in his mighty power would have a devastating effect upon the land of Israel, its inhabitants, and the Babylonians. While learning that God would come in person as a bright light, Habakkuk’s readers would know that God would also bring with him a great destructive force of judgment. Great suffering would be inflicted upon the Israelites by the Babylonians which is likened to a pestilence. In turn the Babylonians would suffer because of a plague that would inflict them. Both nations would be subject to the judgment of God. His people would endure it because of their rebellion and rejection, and the Babylonians would encounter it because of their treatment of the Israelites who were his special people. God dealt with the Egyptians in a similar way. When Pharoah refused to listen to him when he spoke through Moses, commanding him to release the Israelites from being slaves in Egypt, God sent ten plagues upon the nation that devastated the country.
5 Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels.