Yesaya 26:18

26:18 We were pregnant, we strained,

we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹ 

We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;

people to populate the world are not born. ² 

Yesaya 49:6

49:6 he says, “Is it too insignificant a task for you to be my servant,

to reestablish the tribes of Jacob,

and restore the remnant ³  of Israel? ⁴ 

I will make you a light to the nations, ⁵ 

so you can bring ⁶  my deliverance to the remote regions of the earth.”

[26:18]  ¹ tn On the use of כְּמוֹ (kÿmo, “like, as”) here, see BDB 455 s.v. Israel’s distress and suffering, likened here to the pains of childbirth, seemed to be for no purpose. A woman in labor endures pain with the hope that a child will be born; in Israel’s case no such positive outcome was apparent. The nation was like a woman who strains to bring forth a child, but can’t push the baby through to daylight. All her effort produces nothing.

[26:18]  ² tn Heb “and the inhabitants of the world do not fall.” The term נָפַל (nafal) apparently means here, “be born,” though the Qal form of the verb is not used with this nuance anywhere else in the OT. (The Hiphil appears to be used in the sense of “give birth” in v. 19, however.) The implication of verse 18b seems to be that Israel hoped its suffering would somehow end in deliverance and an increase in population. The phrase “inhabitants of the world” seems to refer to the human race in general, but the next verse, which focuses on Israel’s dead, suggests the referent may be more limited.

[49:6]  ³ tn Heb “the protected [or “preserved”] ones.”

[49:6]  ⁴ sn The question is purely rhetorical; it does not imply that the servant was dissatisfied with his commission or that he minimized the restoration of Israel.

[49:6]  ⁵ tn See the note at 42:6.

[49:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “be” (so KJV, ASV); CEV “you must take.”