God is spoken of as if he was a soldier marching ahead of the people of Israel. (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-metaphor]])
# the heavens also dropped rain ... God's presence
"God caused it to rain"
# in the presence of God
This idiom here refers to God's appearance before the Israelites. AT: "when God appeared to the Israelites" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-parallelism]])