Isaiah 26:18 · Bible study
Isaiah 26:18 Commentary: Frustrated Labor and Resurrection Hope
Hebrew · 11 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Why does the community's longing for deliverance produce only wind?
Research Summary
- Meaning: The community confesses that its intense efforts for deliverance have failed, producing only emptiness, a low point that anticipates God's resurrection power in verse 19.
- Key words: Ruach (wind/breath/vain thing), yeshuot (plural: deliverances/salvations), naphal (to fall; some read as “to be born” via Arabic idiom).
- Main debate: Whether “wind” refers to a literal false pregnancy (Michaelis, Clarke) or a figurative abortive effort (Barnes, Calvin); and whether “inhabitants of the world have not fallen” means enemies remain unsubdued or that the land's population has not yet been born (Cambridge, Maurer).
- Theological theme: Human inability to bring about salvation; the necessity of God's sovereign intervention through resurrection.
- Best use: A model for honest lament in prayer, especially when God's promises seem delayed. Connects directly to the hope of bodily resurrection in verse 19.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
We were with child; we writhed in pain; but we gave birth to wind. We have given no salvation to the earth, nor brought any life into the world.
WEB World English Bible 2000
We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
KJV King James Version 1769
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.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
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.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
We have conceived, we have been pained. We have brought forth as it were wind, Salvation we do not work in the earth, Nor do the inhabitants of the world fall.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
Concebimos, tuvimos dolores de parto, parimos como viento: salud ninguna hicimos en la tierra, ni cayeron los moradores del mundo.
Concebemos e tivemos dores, porém geramos nada além de vento. Não trouxemos libertação à terra, nem os moradores do mundo caíram.
Nous avons conçu, nous avons éprouvé des douleurs,
Da sind wir auch schwanger und ist uns bange, daß wir kaum Odem holen; doch können wir dem Lande nicht helfen, und Einwohner auf dem Erdboden wollen nicht geboren werden.
Wij waren bevrucht, wij hadden de smarten, maar wij hebben niet dan wind gebaard; wij deden het land geen behoudenis aan, en de inwoners der wereld vielen niet neder.
Abbiamo concepito, siamo stati in doglie, e, quando abbiamo partorito, era vento; non abbiamo recata alcuna salvezza al paese, e non son nati degli abitanti nel mondo.
Poczęliśmy, boleliśmy; aleśmy tylko jakoby wiatr porodzili, a żadnegośmy wybawienia ziemi nie sprawili, i nie upadli mieszkający na okręgu ziemskim.
Были беременны, мучились, - и рождали как бы ветер; спасения не доставили земле, и прочие жители вселенной не пали.
我們也曾懷孕 疼痛，所產的 竟像 風一樣。我們在地上 未曾 行 甚麼拯救的事；世上 的居民 也未曾 敗落。
We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Isaiah 26:18
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators across traditions agree that this verse describes the community's failed efforts to bring about deliverance. The childbirth metaphor, extended from verse 17, emphasizes intense longing and pain that ends in nothing. Barnes states plainly that verse 18 refers to sorrows and calamities when efforts at deliverance proved abortive. Calvin notes that the godly, unlike a woman whose pains end in joy, bring forth nothing but anguish, wind. Gill uses the same language: hopes proved abortive, expectations disappointed. The verb forms reinforce this: the Qal perfects harinu (we were pregnant) and chalnu (we were in labor) lead to yaladnu ruach (we gave birth to wind), where ruach (wind/breath) carries the sense of a vain, empty thing (lexicon H7307). The plural yeshuot (deliverances/salvations) highlights that no act of rescue occurred. The final clause, “neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen,” is broadly understood as the continued domination of hostile powers. Keil and Delitzsch summarize: the issue of all their painful toil was like a false pregnancy. This confession of utter human inability stands as the low point from which God's resurrection promise in verse 19 dawns as pure grace.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Failed human efforts: Barnes, Gill, Calvin: the verse describes abortive attempts at deliverance, likely during the exile or oppression.
- False pregnancy (empneumatosis): Michaelis, Clarke, and Cambridge mention the medical condition known to ancient writers as an explanation for the vivid metaphor of 'bringing forth wind.'
- Unfulfilled population growth: Some (Cambridge, Maurer) translate the final clause as 'the inhabitants of the world have not been born,' reading naphal as 'be born' via Arabic idiom, interpreting the complaint as about insufficient population in the restored land.
What is clear: The community’s intense longing and effort produced no visible deliverance, setting the stage for God’s resurrection promise in verse 19.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning of “wind” (<em>ruach</em>) | It signifies emptiness, failure, or that which proves abortive, contrasted with the living child a woman hopes for. | Some (Michaelis, Clarke) see a reference to the medical condition of false pregnancy (empneumatosis). Others (Barnes, Calvin, Gill) treat it as a general metaphor for frustrated efforts, not a specific diagnosis. |
| Identity of “the inhabitants of the world” | They are a group opposed to God's people, whose dominion remains unbroken. | Most commentators identify them as the Assyrian or Babylonian oppressors. A minority (Cambridge, Maurer) read “fall” as “be born” and understand the line as a complaint that the population of the renewed land has not yet come into existence. |
| Relationship of verse 18 to verse 19 | Verse 18's confession of failure sets up God's promise of resurrection in verse 19. The contrast is between human inability and divine power. | Some emphasize the discontinuity: God's act comes after human effort is exhausted. Others see a pattern: the birth pangs of verse 17-18 are the necessary preparation for the new creation in verse 19. |
| The grammatical form of “we have not wrought” | The perfect tense (completed action) indicates that the community looks back on failed efforts. | Some translations render it as a perfect of experience (“we have not wrought”), others as a present result (“we do not work”). The Hebrew imperfect (<em>na'aseh</em>) here is modal, likely indicating intention or attempted action that was not realized. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Isaiah 26 sits within the so-called “Isaiah apocalypse” (chapters 24, 27), a collection of songs and prophecies that describe God’s judgment on the world and the vindication of His people. The immediate context: verse 14 declares the enemies dead and destroyed, yet verse 15 celebrates God’s increase of the nation. Verse 16 begins a lament: in trouble the people poured out prayer under God’s chastening. Verses 17, 18 develop the image of a woman in labor, first as a simile for the people’s posture before God, then as a metaphor for the painful failure of their hopes.
The historical setting likely reflects the period of exile or post-exilic oppression. Many commentators connect the verse to the seventy-year captivity in Babylon, when the Jewish community longed for deliverance but lacked power to achieve it (Barnes). The phrase “inhabitants of the world” probably refers to the ruling empires, Assyria, Babylon, that remained unbroken. The poetry itself oscillates between judgment and mercy, giving voice to the raw tension of waiting on God.
Culturally, the image of false pregnancy (empneumatosis) was known to ancient medicine, as Michaelis and Clarke note. The metaphor would resonate with any community that had poured out desperate prayer only to see no result. Yet this very honesty prepares the way for the startling reversal of verse 19: “Your dead shall live.” The same God who brings His people to the end of their own resources will raise them from the dust.
Textual Notes
The supplied sources note no significant textual variants for verse 18. The plural form yeshuot (“deliverances/salvations”) appears in the Masoretic Text and is consistently reflected in the ancient versions (Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate). Some translations, like the WEB and KJV, render it as “deliverance” (singular) for natural English flow, but the plural emphasizes the completeness of the failure, no act of rescue at all. The verb yippelu (“they fall”) is read by some as a reference to being born (Arabic cognate, noted by Cambridge), but no manuscript evidence supports altering the text. The grammar of the final line allows either reading, depending on the semantic range of naphal.
Reception History
Within the canon, this verse is part of the Isaiah apocalypse (chapters 24, 27), a section that early Christian readers interpreted as referring to the end times and the resurrection. The stark confession of human failure here was seen as the necessary counterpart to God’s sole work of salvation. Some patristic writers, such as those in the Eastern tradition, drew on the childbirth imagery to describe the church’s labor in bringing forth spiritual children amid persecution. During the Reformation, commentators like Calvin and Luther used the verse to underscore total human inability, no one can effect their own deliverance. In modern worship, the verse appears rarely as a direct quotation, but its theme of waiting on God through apparent failure resonates in hymns and prayers that invoke the birth pangs of a new creation.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- We have been with child, The community confesses its intense longing and expectation for deliverance. Like a pregnant woman, they carried hope, even as they endured pain.
- We brought forth wind, All their efforts produced nothing substantial. Their prayers, plans, and struggles ended in emptiness. Commentators call this an “abortive effort” (Barnes) or a “false pregnancy” (Michaelis).
- We have not wrought any deliverance, This is the honest admission of human inability. The enemies have not fallen. The church cannot save itself.
Five-point outline
- The metaphor of childbirth, Both the intensity and the disappointment. Pain without joy.
- The specific disappointment, “Wind” as emptiness, contrasting the Spirit/breath (ruach) that gives life (Ezekiel 37).
- The scope of failure, “Deliverances” (plural) not worked; the land not secured; the world not subdued.
- The continued dominance of enemies, The “inhabitants of the world” have not fallen. Oppression persists.
- The pivot to God alone, This low point sets up verse 19: God’s resurrection power, not human effort, brings real deliverance.
Illustration hooks
- Medical analogy: A false pregnancy, the body experiences real symptoms, real pain, but no child. So with many of our hopes for change in our communities, families, or churches. The pain is real; the result is not.
- Failed reform movement: Think of a social justice campaign that poured out years of effort, yet saw the opposing system remain intact. The honest lament of verse 18 gives permission to name such grief before God.
- Personal project: A business startup or a church plant that exhausts its founders but closes without achieving its goal. The grief is not faithlessness, it is part of the biblical pattern of waiting.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Why does God allow our most intense prayers and efforts to produce nothing visible?
- How can we keep trusting God when His promises seem delayed and our enemies prosper?
- Is it wrong to feel disappointed with God when our labors fail?
Leading a Discussion
This verse names a painful reality that many believers experience: seasons of intense prayer and effort that seem to accomplish nothing. The community of Isaiah does not hide its frustration. Before you read verse 19 together, let this disappointment sit. Then watch how God answers not with a lecture, but with resurrection.
Discussion questions
- What does the childbirth metaphor tell you about the intensity of the community's longing? Have you ever felt that kind of desperation before God?
- The word “wind” (ruach) can also mean spirit or breath. How does the context help you decide which meaning fits here? What difference does it make?
- Why do you think the verse uses the plural “deliverances” instead of a single deliverance? What does that suggest about the scope of God’s salvation?
- The final clause says the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. Some commentators read “fallen” as “been born” (Cambridge). How does each reading change the meaning of the verse?
- How does this confession of failure prepare the reader for the promise of resurrection in verse 19? What does that transition tell you about the relationship between human effort and God’s work?
- In what areas of your life or church do you feel like you are “bringing forth wind”? How can this verse give you language to bring that to God?
- How does the resurrection promise in verse 19 reshape the way you view your current disappointments?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Exodus 5:22 | Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me? |
| Exodus 5:23 | For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all!” |
| Joshua 7:7 | Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan! |
| Joshua 7:9 | For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. What will you do for your great name?” |
| I Samuel 11:13 | Saul said, “No man shall be put to death today; for today Yahweh has rescued Israel.” |
| I Samuel 14:45 | The people said to Saul, “Shall Jonathan die, who has worked this great salvation in Israel? Far from it! As Yahweh lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God today!” So the people rescued Jonathan, so he didn’t die. |
| II Kings 19:3 | They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them. |
| Psalms 17:14 | from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke identifies a specific medical condition behind the image of bringing forth wind: empneumatosis, where women experience all the signs of pregnancy but only pass wind. He cites an ancient medical description to show the verse describes a real, recognized disorder, not merely a poetic figure.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes reads this as the Jewish people reflecting on their failed efforts during the Babylonian captivity, comparing their fruitless struggles for deliverance to a woman experiencing the full pain of childbirth only to pass wind instead of bringing forth a child. He rejects the idea that this refers to birds laying unfertilized eggs, instead siding with Michaelis's medical understanding of a false pregnancy where all labor produces nothing.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin draws a sharp contrast with the usual childbirth metaphor: women in labor eventually give birth and forget their pain, but the godly suffer without end. New troubles constantly await them, and when they expect relief, they produce nothing but anguish. True deliverance does not come, and the wicked continue to prosper.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
The commentary reads this as a lament that the nation's prayers and sufferings have been fruitless—it has brought forth no offspring to populate the earth. This unusual meaning of the Hebrew verb, supported by Arabic and Greek, reflects the poet's real historical disappointment rather than an ideal future hope.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva annotators stress the total futility of human effort without God. Like a woman who labors in pain only to give birth to wind, the people's struggles produced no help on earth and did not make their enemies fall. All human striving amounts to nothing.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill applies these words to the church's disappointed hopes for deliverance and Christ's kingdom. Their eager expectations, like childbirth pains, produced nothing. He specifically identifies the "inhabitants of the world" with Popish persecuting princes who have not yet fallen, but will at Armageddon.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB sees the "wind" as a figure for abortive human effort. The "we" in this verse stands in contrast to "Thy" and "my" in the next: what people vainly attempt, God will accomplish. Israel's land has not become a place of security, and the hostile world has not been subdued.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch highlight the specific Hebrew word "lachash" for a whispered, barely audible prayer, since crushing sorrow and guilt leave a person speechless. They stress that Israel's intense expectancy, pictured as childbirth labor, repeatedly ended in disappointment, like a false pregnancy delivering only wind. Their own efforts could not bring salvation, and no new generation emerged to repopulate the land.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry reads the prophet's words as an acknowledgment that every good work done by God's people is actually God's own work in them. He emphasizes that whatever good thoughts or affections arise in the heart come from God's grace working within, not from human effort alone.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley reads the "we" as God's people who endured the pain of childbirth but produced nothing of value. Their labor and hopes against the world, meaning the Assyrians or other enemies, were completely unsuccessful.