Zephaniah 1:10 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

In that day: see Zephaniah 1:9. Saith the Lord; to assure us of the certainty of the thing. The noise, Heb. the voice, of a cry, i.e. a very great outcry and lamentation, from the fish-gate, which was on the west side of Jerusalem, through which gate they brought in fish from Joppa and other sea towns on the west sea, or great sea, now the Mediterranean, at which gate the Babylonians are said first to enter into the city when they took it: thus it will be a prediction at what gate the enemy should enter. A howling, the great, horrid, and confused lamentations of desperate and undone multitudes, crying out and bitterly bemoaning themselves, from the second gate, which was in the second wall of Jerusalem, which on that side was fortified with three walls; or second part of the city, or the middle city, for it was divided into three parts. Others read second as a proper name, and make it the school, college, or university, and so render, the howling of the university, i.e. of students either slaughtered or captivated by Chaldeans. A great crashing; breaking in pieces, or the noise of what is broken into shivers; possibly the noise of doors, windows, closets, and chests broken up, or burning, in the houses of nobles, likened here to hills; or, more literally, in Gareb and Goath, on which the fleeing Jews, pursued by the Chaldees, lost what they carried with them, and their life too: so all places were full of miserable slaughter and outcries. In that day: see Zephaniah 1:9. Saith the Lord; to assure us of the certainty of the thing. The noise, Heb. the voice, of a cry, i.e. a very great outcry and lamentation, from the fish-gate, which was on the west side of Jerusalem, through which gate they brought in fish from Joppa and other sea towns on the west sea, or great sea, now the Mediterranean, at which gate the Babylonians are said first to enter into the city when they took it: thus it will be a prediction at what gate the enemy should enter. A howling, the great, horrid, and confused lamentations of desperate and undone multitudes, crying out and bitterly bemoaning themselves, from the second gate, which was in the second wall of Jerusalem, which on that side was fortified with three walls; or second part of the city, or the middle city, for it was divided into three parts. Others read second as a proper name, and make it the school, college, or university, and so render, the howling of the university, i.e. of students either slaughtered or captivated by Chaldeans. A great crashing; breaking in pieces, or the noise of what is broken into shivers; possibly the noise of doors, windows, closets, and chests broken up, or burning, in the houses of nobles, likened here to hills; or, more literally, in Gareb and Goath, on which the fleeing Jews, pursued by the Chaldees, lost what they carried with them, and their life too: so all places were full of miserable slaughter and outcries.