Isaiah 26:18

We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) We have as it were brought forth wind.—Left to themselves, the longing expectations of Israel had been frustrated. It was, “as it were” (the words imply the prophet’s consciousness of the boldness of the figure), like a false pregnancy, a disease with no birth as its outcome.

Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.—Better, Neither were the inhabitants of the world brought to birth, the verb to “fall” being used, as in Wisdom Of Solomon 7:3; Hom., II., xix. 10, of the delivery of a woman with child. The words continue the picture of the fruitlessness of mere human strivings and expectations. The LXX., “They that are in the tombs shall rise,” connects itself with John 5:28-29. (Comp. the like imagery in Isaiah 37:3.) The “creation” was “subject unto vanity,” as in Romans 8:20-22.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:12-19 Every creature, every business, any way serviceable to our comfort, God makes to be so; he makes that work for us which seemed to make against us. They had been slaves of sin and Satan; but by the Divine grace they were taught to look to be set free from all former masters. The cause opposed to God and his kingdom will sink at last. See our need of afflictions. Before, prayer came drop by drop; now they pour it out, it comes now like water from a fountain. Afflictions bring us to secret prayer. Consider Christ as the Speaker addressing his church. His resurrection from the dead was an earnest of all the deliverance foretold. The power of his grace, like the dew or rain, which causes the herbs that seem dead to revive, would raise his church from the lowest state. But we may refer to the resurrection of the dead, especially of those united to Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

We have been ... - This refers to sorrows and calamities which they had experienced in former times, when they had made great efforts for deliverance, and when those efforts had proved abortive. Perhaps it refers to the efforts of this kind which they had made during their painful captivity of seventy years. There is no direct proof indeed, that during that time they attempted to revolt, or that they organized themselves for resistance to the Babylonian power; but there can be no doubt that they earnestly desired deliverance, and that their condition was one of extreme pain and anguish - a condition that is strikingly represented here by the pains of childbirth. Nay, it is not improbable that during that long period there may have been abortive efforts made at deliverance, and that here they refer to those efforts as having accomplished nothing.

We have as it were brought forth wind - Our efforts have availed nothing. Michaelis, as quoted by Lowth, explains this figure in the following manner: 'Rariorem morbum describi, empneumatosin, aut ventosam molam dictum; quo quae laborant diu et sibi, et peritis medicis gravidae videntur, tandemque post omnes verae gravitatis molestias et labores ventum ex utero emittant; quem morbum passim describunt medici.' (Syntagma Comment. vol. ii. p. 165.) Grotius thinks that the reference is to birds, 'Quae edunt ova subventanea,' and refers to Pliny x. 58. But the correct reference is, doubtless, that which is mentioned by Michaelis.

Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen - We had no power to subdue them; and notwithstanding all our exertions their dominion was unbroken. This refers to the Babylonians who had dominion over the captive Jews.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. brought forth wind—Michaelis explains this of the disease empneumatosis. Rather, "wind" is a figure for that which proves an abortive effort. The "we" is in antithesis to "Thy," "my" (Isa 26:19), what we vainly attempt, God will accomplish.

not wrought … deliverance in … earth—literally, "the land (Judea) is not made security," that is, is not become a place of security from our enemies.

neither … world fallen—The "world" at large, is in antithesis to "the earth," that is, Judea. The world at enmity with the city of God has not been subdued. But Maurer explains "fallen," according to Arabic idiom, of the birth of a child, which is said to fall when being born; "inhabitants of the world (Israel, Isa 24:4; not the world in general) are not yet born"; that is, the country as yet lies desolate, and is not yet populated.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have had the torment of a woman in child-bearing, but not the comfort of a living child, John 16:21, for we have brought forth nothing but wind; all our labours and hopes were vain and unsuccessful. The prophet here represents their deplorable and desperate condition before God appeared so eminently to deliver them.

We have not wrought any deliverance; we found that we were utterly unable to deliver ourselves.

In the earth; or, in the land, in our own country, where yet we had far greater advantages than we could have had elsewhere.

The inhabitants of the world; the Assyrians, or our other enemies; for they are here opposed to God’s people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

We have been with child,.... Like women with child; we have been full of hopes and expectations of great things, of deliverance from our enemies, and of the kingdom of Christ being at hand:

we have been in pain; in great distress and anxiety, and in fervent and frequent prayer, travailing in birth, which we looked upon as forerunners of a happy issue of things:

we have as it were brought forth wind; all our hopes have proved abortive, and we have been disappointed in our expectations:

we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth: or, "salvations" have "not been wrought in the earth" (f); this explains what is meant by bringing forth wind; salvation and deliverance out of the hand of the enemy not being wrought, as was expected:

neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen; worldly men, the great men, the kings of the earth; particularly such as commit fornication with the whore of Rome, Popish persecuting princes; these as yet are not fallen, though they shall in the battle of Armageddon.

(f) "res salutum non est facta", Vatablus; "salates non fit terra", Montanus; "salutes non factae sunt terrae", Tigurine version; "non sunt factae in terra", Pagninus.

Geneva Study Bible

We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth {r} wind; we have not wrought any deliverance on the earth; neither have the inhabitants of {s} the world fallen.

(r) Our sorrows had no end, neither did we enjoy the comfort that we looked for.

(s) The wicked and men without religion were not destroyed.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Retaining the figure the prophet dwells on the abortive issue of the nation’s prayers and sufferings. In the last clause he seems even to give the figure a closer application. For that sentence is no doubt to be read as in R.V. marg., neither have inhabitants of the world been born; i.e. the mother-nation has brought forth no children to people the world. This sense of the verb “fall” is not found elsewhere in Hebr., but it occurs in Arabic (cf. also the Greek πίπτειν and Latin cadere); and here it is demanded by the last clause of Isaiah 26:19. The complaint (of an insufficient population) seems at first inconsistent with Isaiah 26:15, but the discrepancy belongs to the conflict of feeling which runs through the poem; a certain degree of prosperity has been attained, but not complete and final salvation. It is certainly difficult to imagine such a complaint projected on the ideal horizon of the future. A disappointment so peculiar must be begotten of actual experience. Comp. ch. Isaiah 66:7-9.

we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth] Lit. “we do not make the land salvations”; i.e. we cannot with all our exertions bring about a condition of freedom, prosperity, peace, &c.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - We have as it were brought forth wind. Our pains have been idle, futile - have effected nothing. We have not given deliverance (literally, "salvation") to our land; we have not effected the downfall of our heathen enemies. That downfall was God's work (Isaiah 24:16-20). Isaiah 26:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The tephillâh now returns to the retrospective glance already cast in Isaiah 26:8, Isaiah 26:9 into that night of affliction, which preceded the redemption that had come. "Jehovah, in trouble they missed Thee, poured out light supplication when Thy chastisement came upon them. As a woman with child, who draws near to her delivery, writhes and cries out in her pangs, so were we in Thy sight, O Jehovah. We went with child, we writhed; it was as if we brought forth wind. We brought no deliverance to the land, and the inhabitants of the world did not come to the light." The substantive circumstantial clause in the parallel line, למו מוּסר, castigatione tua eos affilgente (ל as in Isaiah 26:9), corresponds to בּצּר; and לחשׁ צקוּן, a preterite עצוּק etire equals יצק, Job 28:2; Job 29:6, to be poured out and melt away) with Nun paragogic (which is only met with again in Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 8:16, the yekōshūn in Isaiah 29:21 being, according to the syntax, the future of kōsh), answers to pâkad, which is used here as in Isaiah 34:16; 1 Samuel 20:6; 1 Samuel 25:15, in the sense of lustrando desiderare. Lachash is a quiet, whispering prayer (like the whispering of forms of incantation in Isaiah 3:3); sorrow renders speechless in the long run; and a consciousness of sin crushes so completely, that a man does not dare to address God aloud (Isaiah 29:4). Pregnancy and pangs are symbols of a state of expectation strained to the utmost, the object of which appears all the closer the more the pains increase. Often, says the perfected church, as it looks back upon its past history, often did we regard the coming of salvation as certain; but again and again were our hopes deceived. The first כּמו is equivalent to כּ, "as a woman with child," etc. (see at Isaiah 8:22); the second is equivalent to כּאשׁר, "as it were, we brought forth wind." This is not an inverted expression, signifying we brought forth as it were wind; but כמו governs the whole sentence in the sense of "(it was) as if." The issue of all their painful toil was like the result of a false pregnancy (empneumatosis), a delivery of wind. This state of things also proceeded from Jehovah, as the expression "before Thee" implies. It was a consequence of the sins of Israel, and of a continued want of true susceptibility to the blessings of salvation. Side by side with their disappointed hope, Isaiah 26:18 places the ineffectual character of their won efforts. Israel's own doings - no, they could never make the land into ישׁוּעת (i.e., bring it into a state of complete salvation); and (so might the final clause be understood) they waited in vain for the judgment of Jehovah upon the sinful world that was at enmity against them, or they made ineffectual efforts to overcome it. This explanation is favoured by the fact, that throughout the whole of this cycle of prophecies yōshbē tēbēl does not mean the inhabitants of the holy land, but of the globe at large in the sense of "the world" (Isaiah 26:21; Isaiah 24:5-6). Again, the relation of יפּלוּ to the תּפּיל in Isaiah 26:19, land the figure previously employed of the pains of child-birth, speak most strongly in favour of the conclusion, that nâphal is here used for the falling of the fruit of the womb (cf., Wis. 7:3, Il. xix. 110, καταπεσεῖν and πεσεῖν). And yōshbē tēbēl (the inhabitants of the world) fits in with this sense (viz., that the expected increase of the population never came), from the fact that in this instance the reference is not to the inhabitants of the earth; but the words signify inhabitants generally, or, as we should say, young, new-born "mortals." The punishment of the land under the weight of the empire still continued, and a new generation did not come to the light of day to populate the desolate land (cf., Psychol. p. 414).