Zephaniah 2:2

The verse is probably in some disorder: the first two clauses can hardly present the original text, and the last two clauses look like duplicates of one another.

Before the decree bring forth The "decree" is God's purpose, the determined day of the Lord, and its "bringing forth" would mean, its giving birth to its contents or effects. This is rather unnatural language; a different construction would be more probable: Before the decree be brought forth, given birth to or revealed.

before the day pass as the chaff Or, with R.V. marg., as a parenthesis: (like chaff the day passeth by). But it is not the passing by of the day that is the point but its advance; and on the other hand the advanceof chaff before the wind is not a usual or suitable figure.

Instead of chaff(mts) Sept. read flower(nts), rendering the first two clauses of the verse, Before ye become as the flower that passes away. The reading floweris no doubt an error; with the substitution of "chaff" the passage would run: Before ye become like the chaff that passes by. This is a simple reading; how far it reflects the original text must remain uncertain.

The last clause, "day of the anger of the Lord," looks like an explanation of the more general words, "the fierceness of the anger of the Lord" in the previous clause. The Hexaplar Syriac translation indicates that the last clause was not original in the Sept.; on the other hand, a corrector in the Sinaitic MS. (Swete, א c. b) suggests omission of the preceding clause.