Diagnosing Judah’s Distress and Restoration in the Isaiah Apocalypse: Frustrated Childbirth in Isaiah 26 and Mesopotamian Medical Discourse

Commenting on the metaphor in Isa. 26:17–18, i.e., ‘we were with child, we writhed in labour, but we gave birth to wind,’ scholars usually note that it is purely symbolic. The ‘wind’ in it indicates ‘nothingness’ representing Israel’s powerlessness to bring about its own salvation, let alone salvation on a larger scale. This article interrogates Isaiah 26 in light of pseudocyesis or false pregnancy, a condition recognised by the obstetrical knowledge of ancient societies and confirmed by modern medicine. More specifically, it explores the passage alongside Mesopotamian medical texts which feature the presence of ‘wind’ in the body describing illnesses in general and cases of abnormal births in particular.