ὠδίν

From the study of 1 Thessalonians 5:3

Range of meaning

The pain of childbirth, a labor pang. Used figuratively for intense, unavoidable anguish.

Against the English

KJV “travail” is accurate in older English, but today it sounds like “hard work” or “hardship.” “Labor pains” (BSB, NIV, ESV, NASB) and “birth pains” (WEB) are clearer.

How it drifted

“Travail” has faded to mean toil in general. It no longer brings childbirth to mind for most readers.

Used elsewhere in the period

A stock prophetic image for panic when God's judgment arrives: Isaiah 13:8 (the Day of the Lord against Babylon), Jeremiah 6:24 (right after the false “Peace, peace” of 6:14), Jeremiah 4:31, Hosea 13:13, Psalm 48:6. 1 Enoch 62:4 says that pain comes upon the kings and the mighty “like a woman in labor” when they see the Son of Man. Jesus calls the troubles before the end “the beginning of birth pains” (Mark 13:8).

From the study of Acts 2:24

Range of meaning

Above all, the pains of a woman in labour (1 Thess 5:3; Isa 13:8 LXX). It is extended to any sharp, overwhelming distress, and in Jewish and Christian writing to the 'birth pangs' that come before the new age (Matt 24:8; Mark 13:8). The full phrase 'pangs of death' is a set idiom from the Greek Psalms for death surrounding and seizing a person.

Against the English

KJV and YLT have 'pains', ESV 'pangs', BSB, NIV and WEB 'agony', NASB 'agony' with 'putting an end to'. Each keeps a sense of suffering, but most drop the labour image. 'Agony' especially makes modern readers think of the physical torment of crucifixion, when the Psalm idiom refers to death's grip itself.

How it drifted

The labour image fades because English 'pains of death' sounds like a description of how dying feels. A further layer comes from the Latin 'doloribus inferni' ('sorrows of hell'). In older Catholic English this could be read as Christ suffering in hell.

Used elsewhere in the period

Psalm 17:5–6 LXX (Ps 18:4–5 in English Bibles): 'the pangs of death (ōdines thanatou) surrounded me… the pangs of Hades encircled me'. The same wording appears in 2 Kingdoms (2 Samuel) 22:6 and Psalm 114:3 LXX (Ps 116:3). The Hebrew behind these verses is חֶבְלֵי מָוֶת (ḥeblê māwet). The Hebrew consonants ḥbl can mean 'cords, ropes' (ḥebel) or 'birth pains' (ḥēbel). Most modern translators of the Psalm read 'cords of death', but the Greek translators took it as 'pangs'. The Dead Sea Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH col. XI) combine the 'breakers/pangs of death' and the 'cords/pangs of Sheol' with a woman in labour bringing forth a 'male child' through deadly throes. This shows that Jews of the period could link death's pangs with the birth of something new. Polycarp (Philippians 1:2, early 2nd century) quotes this line of Acts in the 'Hades' form.

From the study of Matthew 24:8

Range of meaning

Its primary meaning is the pain of childbirth, labor pangs (BDAG sense 1; LSJ). By extension it means any sharp, overwhelming anguish, often used in the plural (BDAG sense 2). In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) and the NT the extended use mostly comes from Hebrew ḥebel, "pang", which sounds like ḥebel "cord, rope". So Psalm 18:4–5 [LXX 17:5–6] has ōdines thanatou, "pangs of death", and Peter's sermon says God "loosed the pangs of death" (Acts 2:24). Even in the extended use, the sense of labor usually stays in the background.

Against the English

Modern versions (BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV, NASB) say "birth pains/pangs", which keeps the image. KJV and YLT say "sorrows". In 1611 that word could still mean physical pain, and KJV uses "sorrow" for labor itself ("in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children", Gen 3:16). Today it suggests grief or sadness, and the picture of a birth is lost.

How it drifted

The Latin Vulgate's initia sunt dolorum ("beginnings of pains") passed into Tyndale's "the beginnynge of sorowes" and then into the KJV. Since then English "sorrow" has narrowed to an emotion, mourning or sadness, and the bodily sense of labor has dropped away.

Used elsewhere in the period

Old Testament: Israel and Zion often appear as a woman in labor at moments of crisis that lead to deliverance or judgment: Isaiah 13:8; 26:17–19 (labor that seems to produce nothing, then the dead rise); 66:7–9 (Zion gives birth suddenly); Jeremiah 22:23; 30:6–7; Hosea 13:13; Micah 4:9–10 and 5:3 ("until she who is in labor has given birth"). Dead Sea Scrolls: Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH^a XI) describe a woman in labor giving birth amid "pangs of death" (Hebrew ḥebley mawet). Jewish apocalyptic writings: 1 Enoch 62:4 (pain like a woman in labor comes on the rulers); 4 Ezra 4:40–42 (the underworld, like a womb, hurries to give back its dead); 2 Baruch 25–30 (tribulations in stages before the Messiah). In later rabbinic texts this became a set phrase, ḥeblo shel mashiaḥ, "the birth pangs of the Messiah" (b. Sanhedrin 98b; b. Shabbat 118a), though these texts are later than the Gospels. Elsewhere in the NT: 1 Thessalonians 5:3 (sudden destruction "as labor pains on a pregnant woman"); Romans 8:22 (creation "groans together in labor", synōdinei); John 16:21; Galatians 4:19; Revelation 12:2.