Bible Strands
Isaiah 26:17
As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet speaks for Israel to the LORD, describing their collective state immediately after seeking Him in distress and receiving discipline. The people compare their spiritual condition to a woman near delivery.
The words — The text employs הָרָה (ha.Rah), literally a pregnant woman, and תִּזְעַק (tiz.'Ak), she cries out, to establish a direct simile. The particle כֵּ֛ן (ken), so, grammatically binds the metaphor to the people’s experience in God’s presence.
The thread — This labor imagery appears in Isaiah 13:8 and Isaiah 21:3 to depict terror and anguish during judgment. John 16:21 applies the same metaphor to the transition from sorrow to joy in childbirth.
Why it lands — The verse states the people’s intense but fruitless spiritual striving before God. It demands recognition that human effort under discipline produces only anguish, not salvation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 13:8 Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear.
- Isaiah 21:3 Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.
- John 16:21 A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.
- Jeremiah 4:31 For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”
- 1 Thessalonians 5:3 While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
- Psalms 48:6 Trembling seized them there, anguish like a woman in labor.
- Jeremiah 6:24 We have heard the report; our hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped us, pain like that of a woman in labor.
- Jeremiah 30:6 Ask now, and see: Can a male give birth? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor and every face turned pale?