Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageWe conceived, we labored, we writhed—and yet we gave birth to nothing but wind. No deliverance came from us; no victory over the world's oppressors was won by our hands.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GWe conceived, we writhed—but we gave birth only to wind. We have brought no salvation to the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
KJV
King James VersionWe have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleWe were with child; we writhed in pain; but we gave birth to wind. We have given no salvation to the earth, nor brought any life into the world.
Footnotes
רוּחַ (*ruach*—wind/breath/spirit) here carries the bleak meaning of emptiness—a birth that produced only air, the ultimate biological disappointment. This is a corporate confession of human incapacity to generate the deliverance Israel longed for through its own striving. The contrast with v.19 is therefore all the more luminous: where human labour produces only wind, YHWH's dew produces resurrection life from dust. The verse also echoes the futility of the nations' plotting in Ps. 2:1—they rage and devise, but it comes to nothing. FOG renders "wind" to preserve the raw *ruach* image; FOG Message adds "nothing but wind" and the explanatory clause to make the total failure explicit.
