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 33:11

33:11 You conceive straw, ³ 

you give birth to chaff;

your breath is a fire that destroys you. ⁴ 

Yesaya 39:7

39:7 ‘Some of your very own descendants whom you father ⁵  will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

Yesaya 66:7

66:7 Before she goes into labor, she gives birth!

Before her contractions begin, she delivers a boy!

[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.

[33:11]  ³ tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.

[33:11]  ⁴ sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.

[39:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “Some of your sons, who go out from you, whom you father.”