Birth and travail imagery uses labor pains, children coming forth, being born again, or life produced through anguish to picture sorrow turning to joy, regeneration, formation, or redemptive emergence.
Birth and travail imagery uses labor pains, children coming forth, being born again, or life produced through anguish to picture sorrow turning to joy, regeneration, formation, or redemptive emergence.
A birth-and-emergence motif in which conception, labor, travail, birth, new birth, begetting, or formation-in-the-womb signifies literal childbirth, covenant crisis, sorrow-to-joy reversal, regeneration, spiritual formation, or creation awaiting renewal.
These examples show how Birth, New Birth, Travail, and Life-Coming-Forth Imagery functions in biblical language, rhetoric, poetry, prophecy, narrative, or theological imagery.
in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children
Childbearing pain enters as part of the curse context.
a woman with child... crieth out in her pangs
Travail pictures distress before deliverance.
before she travailed, she brought forth
Zion's birth imagery presents sudden divine restoration.
Except a man be born again
New birth names the necessary work of God for entering the kingdom.
as soon as she is delivered... joy
Birth pain becomes an image for sorrow turned to joy.
the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
Creation's present suffering is pictured as labor awaiting renewal.
I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you
Paul uses birth labor for pastoral anguish and spiritual formation.
Of his own will begat he us
New life is attributed to God's will through the word of truth.
begotten us again unto a lively hope
Regeneration is pictured as God begetting believers anew.
Being born again... by the word of God
New birth is tied to incorruptible seed and the living word.
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