Zephaniah 1:15

a day of wrath i.e. of the outpouring of the wrath of God. The effects of this wrath are then detailed: (1) trouble and distress; (2) wasteness and desolation; (3) darkness and gloominess, clouds and thick darkness. The combination "trouble and distress" is found again Job 15:24; cf. Isaiah 30:6; "wasteness" or devastation "and desolation," Job 38:27; and the phrase "a day of darkness," &c. Joel 2:2. Cf. Isaiah 13:10; Amos 5:18. These supernatural terrors are not to be regarded as figures, they are realities; the world is a human and moral world: nature is convulsed and dissolved in man's judgment, and transfigured and glorified in his redemption. The first words of the Vulgate translation of this verse, Dies iræ dies illa, were adopted by Thomas of Celano as the opening words of his splendid hymn on the Last Judgment. See Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 296.