Isaiah 13:8

Hebrew Bible

6 Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment is near; it comes with all the destructive power of the Sovereign One. 7 For this reason all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage. 8 They panic—cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red. 9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment is coming; it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, destroying the earth and annihilating its sinners.

1 Enoch 62:4

Pseudepigrapha

3 On that day, all the kings, the mighty, the exalted, and those who hold the earth will stand, and they shall see and recognize how he sits on the throne of his glory, and how righteousness is judged before him, and no false word is spoken before him. 4 Pain will come upon them as upon a woman in childbirth, when her child enters the birth canal, and she feels the agony of delivery. 5 One group will look at another in terror, their faces will fall, and pain will seize them when they see the Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory.

 Notes and References

"... “She was pregnant and cried out in labor, in the throes of childbirth.” ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα is a technical phrase for a pregnant woman (Matthew 1:18, 23 [citing Isaiah 7:14]; Mark 713:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:3) ... Israel in distress is frequently compared to a woman suffering birth pains (Isaiah 21:3; 26:17–18; 37:3; Jeremiah 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:6; Micah 4:9; 1 Enoch 62:4; 1QH 3:8–9), and various Hebrew phrases meaning “like a woman in labor” occur frequently in the Old Testament and in ancient Near Eastern literature (Isaiah 13:8; 21:3; 42:14; Jeremiah 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:6; 49:24; 50:43; Micah 4:9, 10; Psalm 48:7). Isaiah 66:7 uses the metaphor of Israel bearing a male child to indicate the arrival of the period of salvation. Isaiah 26:17 also compares Israel’s helplessness before her enemies to “a woman with child who writhes and cries out in her pangs, when she is near her time” ..."

Aune, David Word Biblical Commentary: Revelation 6-16 (p. 688) Zondervan, 2017

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