Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
the Fourth Week after Easter
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Travail
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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trav´ā́l ( ילד , yāladh ( Genesis 35:16 , etc.), חוּל , ḥūl , חיל , ḥı̄l (properly "writhe," Job 15:20 , etc.); ὠδίν , ōdin (classical ōdı́s ) (Matthew 24:8 , etc.), ὠδίνω , ōdı́nō (Sirach 19:11, etc.; Galatians 4:19 , etc.)): "Travail" and its derivatives are used in the primary sense of the labor of childbirth, descriptive of the actual cases of Rachel (Genesis 35:16 ), Tamar (Genesis 38:27 ), Ichabod's mother (1 Samuel 4:19 ), and the apocalyptic woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:2 ). In the majority of passages, however, "travail" is used figuratively , to express extreme and painful sorrow (9 times in Jeremiah), "as of a woman in travail." It is also employed in the sense of irksome and vexatious business (6 times in Ecclesiastes, where it is the rendering of the word ‛inyān ). In the same book "travail" is used to express the toil of one's daily occupation (Ecclesiastes 4:4 , Ecclesiastes 4:6 ), where it is the translation of ‛āmāl . In three places (Exodus 18:8; Numbers 20:14; Lamentations 3:5 ) where the King James Version has "travel" the Revised Version (British and American) has changed it to "travail," as in these passages the word telā'āh refers to the sense of weariness and toil, rather than to the idea of journeying (in the King James Version the spellings "travel" and "travail" were used indiscriminately; compare Sirach 19:11; 31:5). The sorrows which are the fruits of wickedness are compared to the pain of travail in Job 15:20 ( ḥūl ) and Psalm 7:14 ( ḥābhal ), the word used here meaning the torture or twisting pains of labor; see also the fanciful employment of "travail" in Sirach 19:11.
In the New Testament the travail of childbirth is used as the figure of the painful and anxious struggle against the evils of the world in the soul's efforts to attain the higher ideals of the Christian life (John 16:21 ( tı́ktō ); Romans 8:22; Galatians 4:27 ); twice, however, it is the rendering of móchthos , the ordinary word for "toil," "hardship" or "distress" (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8 ). See BIRTH; LABOR .
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Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Travail'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/t/travail.html. 1915.
