“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,”
King James Version (KJV)
1:5 A manifest token - This is treated of in the sixth #2Th 1:6 and following verses|.
1:6 It is a righteous thing with God - (However men may judge) to transfer the pressure from you to them. And it is remarkable that about this time, at the passover, the Jews raising a tumult, a great number (some say thirty thousand) of them were slain. St. Paul seems to allude to this beginning of sorrows, #1Th 2:16|, which did not end but with their destruction.
1:8 Taking vengeance - Does God barely permit this, or (as the Lord once rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, #Gen 19:24|) does a fiery stream go forth from him for ever? Who know not God - (The root of all wickedness and misery) who remain in heathen ignorance. And who obey not - This refers chiefly to the Jews, who had heard the gospel.
1:9 From the glory of his power - Tremble, ye stout - hearted. Everlasting destruction - As there can be no end of their sins, (the same enmity against God continuing,) so neither of their punishment; sin and its punishment running parallel throughout eternity itself. They must of necessity, therefore, be cut off from all good, and all possibility of it. From the presence of the Lord - Wherein chiefly consists the salvation of the righteous. What unspeakable punishment is implied even in falling short of this, supposing that nothing more were implied in his taking vengeance!
2Th 1:7 And not only that, but it is a righteous thing that he give to you who are troubled rest with us. That rest would come when there would be no persecutors, no stripes, no stonings, no prisons. It shall be when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven. At the Lord's coming. Compare Mt 24:30.