Isaiah 21:3

Because of this, my lower back has been filled with pain, and anguish has possessed me, like the anguish of a woman in labor. I fell down when I heard it. I was disturbed when I saw it.

Catholic Public Domain Version

In The King James Version

Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

In Context

2A difficult vision has been announced to me: he who is unbelieving, he acts unfaithfully, and he who is a plunderer, he devastates. Ascend, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I have caused all its mourning to cease.

4My heart withered. The darkness stupefied me. Babylon, my beloved, has become a wonder to me.

Read all of Isaiah 21

Cross References

Deuteronomy 28:67In the morning you will say, ‘Who will grant evening to me?’ and at evening, ‘Who will grant morning to me?’ because of the dread of your heart, with which you will be terrified, and because of those things that you will see with your eyes.

Isaiah 13:8Writhing and pain will seize them. They will be in pain, like a woman in labor. Each one will appear stupefied to his neighbor. Their countenances will be like faces which have been burned up.

Isaiah 16:9I will weep with the tears of Jazer over this, the vineyard of Sibmah. I will inebriate you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh! For the sound of those who trample has rushed over your vintage and over your harvest.

Isaiah 26:17Like a woman who has conceived and is approaching the time for delivery, who, in anguish, cries out in her pains, so have we become before your face, O Lord.

Jeremiah 49:22Behold, he will ascend like an eagle and will fly. And he will spread his wings over Bozrah. And in that day, the heart of the strong ones of Idumea will be like the heart of a woman giving birth.”

Daniel 5:5In the same hour, there appeared fingers, as of the hand of a man, writing on the surface of the wall, opposite the candlestick, in the king’s palace. And the king observed the part of the hand that wrote.

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 21:2-11

The Doom of Babylon. ( b. c. 714.) 1 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land. 2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease. 3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Isaiah 21:3