But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel - The pagan did, for their own ends, what God willed for His. The first step was the same; God willed that His people should be punished; they willed to punish them. But all which lay beyond, they saw not; that God willed (on their repentance) to pardon His own people, but to punish themselves for their pride Isaiah 10:7, Isaiah 10:12 and cruelty Zechariah 1:15, Zechariah 1:19. : “Almighty God corrects the elect through the reprobate, as with a rod; after which He condemns the reprobate eternally, as when the son has been disciplined, the rod is cast into the fire.”
For He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor - The multitude of the sheaves hinders not the threshing; the multitude of God’s enemies hinders not their destruction. They think that they strengthen themselves, as they gather together; God sees them but as ripened and fitted for destruction, gathered into one bundle together, to perish together. God gathers them, not by constraint or force, but by giving free scope to their own wayward wills, and overruling these to His ends.