Isaiah 26:17 (LSB)

Passage

As the woman with child draws near to the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor, Thus were we before You, O Yahweh.

Nearby Context

Isaiah 26:15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh; You have increased the nation, You are glorified; You have extended all the borders of the land.

Isaiah 26:16 O Yahweh, they visited You in distress; They could only whisper a prayer; Your chastening was upon them.

Isaiah 26:17 As the woman with child draws near to the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor, Thus were we before You, O Yahweh.

Isaiah 26:18 We were with child, we writhed in labor; We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish salvation for the earth, And the inhabitants of the world were not born.

Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "woman", "child", "draws", "near", "time", "give", "birth", and "writhes". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "woman" and "child", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 16's "O Yahweh they visited You in distress..." into verse 18's "We were with child we writhed in...", so "woman" and "child" belong inside that flow. In Isaiah context, the local focus is the Holy One of Israel, judgment and restoration, the servant of the LORD, and Zion's hope.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "woman" and "child" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.