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 And there shall stand up in that day all the kings and the mighty, And the exalted and those who hold the earth, And they shall see and recognize How he sits on the throne of his glory, And righteousness is judged before him, And no lying word is spoken before him. 4 Then shall pain come upon them as on a woman in travail, [And she has pain in bringing forth] When her child enters the mouth of the womb, And she has pain in bringing forth. 5 And one portion of them shall look on the other, And they shall be terrified, And they shall be downcast of countenance, And pain shall seize them, When they see that 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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