Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. – Isaiah 66:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 9, 2017): Isaiah 66

Admirable James Stockdale spent eight years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He survived incredible hardship when many others simply gave up and died. In researching Stockdale for his book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins remarked that he got depressed just reading Stockdale’s book “In Love and War” – a book written in alternating chapters by Admiral Stockdale and his wife, Sybil. When Collins asked Stockdale how he survived his time as a captive, Stockdale replied that “I never lost faith in the end of the story.  I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” Stockdale maintained throughout his captivity that somehow, in the end, all of the pain that he suffered would be finally worth it. When Stockdale was eventually released on February 12, 1973, he was unable to stand upright, and he could barely walk. And yet he still clung to the idea that all of his pain, and the eight years that he spent separated from his family and friends, that all of this was somehow worth it. 

There are a couple of ways that verse has been interpreted. And the first is to simply say that this verse speaks of a metaphorical rebirth of Israel from out of the Babylonian exile, and that rebirth would be without pain. It looks back to the rise Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire, and the King’s sudden release of the captives sending them once again for home, as being a process that was absent of pain. But the problem with this interpretation is that it assumes that the 70 years of captivity were without pain – and that does not appear to make much sense. Any removal of a people from their home would undeniably cause a certain amount of pain – even if their captors intended no harm.

A better interpretation might be to understand the passage to be speaking of the pain of the exile which will end quickly. The prophecy of the end of the captivity would fill the captives with hope – and in the end, the pain of the captivity would provide a benefit to Israel that would be worth all of the pain that the nation had to go through – that somehow all of that pain would eventually be worth it.

Isaiah likens the process to a mother giving birth to a child. It is not that the mother does not go through any pain; the pain of childbirth is great. And yet somehow when you emerge on the other side, and you are finally holding that new life in your arms, the pain seems inconsequential. In the end, the pain is minor when compared to the immense joy that is gained in the child that is born.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Esther 1