These two verses form one sentence in Hebrew and are composed of short, vivid, and poetic descriptive phrases with no main verb stated. The verb “to be” is implied and is used in all major English translations, as in Revised Standard Version A day of wrath is that day. Wrath or “fury” refers to the anger of God. So one may translate “It will be a day when God displays his fury (or, terrible anger),” or in a more figurative way, “It will be a day when God shows a terribly hot heart.” See Nahum 1.2 for other ways to translate “anger.”
A day of distress and anguish: in Hebrew there is a play on the sounds of the two nouns used. The second has some sounds similar to the first but has an extra syllable at the beginning. A similar structure would be produced in English by translating “a day of stress and distress” (Moffatt), but this is not in keeping with patterns of poetic usage in English. If translators can use some kind of play on sounds that fits their own language patterns, that will be very suitable here. In some languages translators may need to expand this sentence and say “a day when people will be troubled and distressed” or “a day when people will receive trouble and experience terrible difficulties.”
A day of ruin and devastation: a similar play on the sounds of the Hebrew words is used here, and again it will be appropriate to use a play on sounds in a translation, if it can be done according to the patterns of the language. No major English version succeeds in making a play on the sounds, in this case. This phrase also occurs as “dry and desolate ground” in Job 30.3; 38.27. In some languages it will be necessary to show the subject of the events of ruin and destruction; for example, “a day when the enemies will cause ruin and destruction.”
A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness: there are no wordplays in these phrases, but a translator should feel free to include them here instead of (or as well as) in the previous phrases, if it is easier to do so. These phrases occur also in Joel 2.2. As with the previous sentences, translators may need to structure this sentence in a slightly different way; for example, “a day full of darkness and gloom, a day full of clouds.” Gloom is similar to darkness. Perhaps it can be expressed as “complete darkness.”
A day of trumpet blast: blowing a trumpet was the traditional way to call soldiers to prepare for battle (see Judges 3.27; 6.34). The trumpets were actually made of rams’ horns, and many translators will have terms in their languages for some similar instrument. The same type of description is found in Amos 2.2. In many languages one may say “A day when they blow the war trumpets (or, rams’ horns),” or even “A day when people hear the sound of the war trumpet.”
And battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements: this last part of the verse in Hebrew consists of three phrases. The first of them is closely linked with the earlier part of the sentence, and the other two are parallel to each other in structure. All this can be seen clearly from the literal translation of Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation has made the relationships between the different parts explicit by stating that the battle cry is “of soldiers attacking.” In many other languages this information will also need to be made explicit. The fortified cities of ancient times usually had a strong stone wall around them and were strengthened with lofty battlements, or as Good News Translation puts it more simply, “high towers” at the corners. In some languages, of course, these cities will need to be described as “large groups of houses surrounded by strong walls with high towers at the corners,” or some similar phrase. The whole of this passage may be based on the events at the time of the Scythian raid mentioned in the introduction, “Translating the Book of Zephaniah.”
Translators should notice, in tackling a passage like this, that part of the meaning comes from the cumulative effect of having phrase heaped upon phrase. In some languages it may be difficult to find words exactly equivalent to those in the Hebrew, especially where the Hebrew uses pairs of words very close together in meaning, as in verse 15. In such languages the translator should not worry too much about matching the number of terms in the original, but rather about matching the overall effect in building a picture of terror and panic. The fact that a number of phrases in these verses occur elsewhere in the Old Testament as noted above suggests that the language is partly traditional, making use of established expressions. Translators may therefore be able to use similar traditional expressions in their own language to create a similar effect, even if the individual words are not identical in meaning with those of the Hebrew. They should be careful, however, not to introduce into the translation any element that would have been culturally or historically impossible in Israel in the seventh century B.C.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Zephaniah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .