Birth

Holman Bible Dictionary

Midwives were often used in the birthing process ( Genesis 35:17;  Genesis 38:28;  Exodus 1:15 ). Birthstools were also used ( Exodus 1:16; see  Ezekiel 16:4 ). Often the child was named at birth ( Genesis 21:3;  Genesis 29:32 ,Genesis 29:32, 29:35;  Genesis 30:6-8 ). The woman was considered ritually unclean for a period of from 40 to 80 days following birth ( Leviticus 12:1-8; see  Luke 2:22 ).

When a son was born, he was placed immediately on his father's knees ( Genesis 50:23;  Job 3:12 ). The psalmist's words, “Upon thee was I cast from my birth,” reflects the father's receiving of his new son and signifies God's care from the moment of birth ( Psalm 22:10;  Psalm 71:6 ). Rachel, by receiving Bilhah's child upon her knees at birth, was adopting him as her own ( Genesis 30:3-8 ).

Birth could be premature because of the shock of bad news ( 1 Samuel 4:19 ). The untimely birth—here, stillborn (see Untimely Birth)—enters the dark, finds rest, and does not know the agony of life ( Ecclesiastes 6:4-5;  Job 3:11-13 ). A miscarriage was caused by accident or violence ( Exodus 21:22-25 ), or may have been considered as divine judgment ( Psalm 58:8;  Hosea 9:14 ).

The birth of a child was a time of rejoicing, especially the birth of a son ( Ruth 4:13-14;  Jeremiah 20:15;  Luke 1:14 ,Luke 1:14, 1:57-58;  Luke 2:13-14;  John 16:21 ). One's birthday was an occasion for celebration ( Genesis 40:20;  Matthew 14:6 ). If life became unbearable, one might be moved to curse the day of birth ( Job 3:3;  Jeremiah 20:14 ).

The birthing process was used in a figurative way in describing the relationship of God to His people. In  Deuteronomy 32:18 , God gave birth to Israel as a mother would give birth to a child. Therefore, when the Israelites said to the tree, “You are my father,” and to the stone, “You gave me birth,” they turned away from their true parent (the tree and stone pillar were symbols in the worship of idols). According to Jesus, it is just as necessary to be born of the Spirit as it is to be born of a woman ( John 3:1-7 ). The birthing process is also used as an image to describe God's creative activity ( Job 38:29 ). God is even pictured as a midwife ( Isaiah 66:7-9 ).

Many biblical writers used the pain of childbirth in a metaphorical way. Kings before God tremble like a woman giving birth ( Psalm 48:6 ). The coming of the day of the Lord will cause anguish similar to childbirth. There will be pangs, agony, cries, gasping, and panting ( Isaiah 13:8;  Isaiah 42:14;  Jeremiah 6:24;  Jeremiah 13:21;  Jeremiah 22:23;  Jeremiah 30:6;  Jeremiah 48:41;  Jeremiah 49:24;  Jeremiah 50:43;  John 16:21;  Revelation 12:2 ).

Phil Logan

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Childbirth. Emblem of acute and sudden suffering, such as shall overtake those unprepared for the Lord's second coming ( 1 Thessalonians 5:3). The special suffering laid on woman as part of the curse from the fall is overruled to a blessing, if she shall faithfully do and suffer the part assigned by God to her, namely, childbearing and home duties, her sphere as distinguished from public teaching, which is man's ( 1 Timothy 2:11-15), "she shall be saved (though) with childbearing"; i.e., though suffering her part of the primeval curse, in childbearing, just as man shall be saved, though having to bear his part, the sweat of the brow. The passage may further imply: her childbearing, though in sorrow, being the function of her sex whereby the Savior was born, shall be the mean of her salvation. Ellicott translates, "through THE childbearing," namely, that of Jesus ( Genesis 3:15-16).

A special interposition mitigated the penalty to the Hebrew women, under the cruel edict of Pharaoh for the destruction of all Hebrew males born ( Exodus 1:15-19). A woman was unclean under the Mosaic law for 40 days after giving birth to a male, and 80 days in the ease of a female. Then she offered a burnt offering and a sin offering for her cleansing; less costly victims were required for the poor, as the Virgin Mary (See Bird .) A child when born was washed, rubbed with salt, and wrapped in swaddling bands, as appears in the Lord's touching picture of His adopting and ultimately marrying Israel ( Ezekiel 16:4), where for "to supple thee" (i.e. to make the skin soft), translate, "to the (or my) sight," i.e. in order to be sightly for me to look upon (See margin. The salting was to make the skin dense and firm.

Natural birth unto life is the constant image in Scripture for spiritual quickening, the new birth of the soul by the Holy Spirit, who convicts of sin and also points the eye of faith to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world ( John 3:3-8;  John 1:13;  Galatians 6:15;  Titus 3:5;  James 1:18;  1 Peter 1:23;  1 John 3:9;  2 Corinthians 5:17; compare  Job 33:24-26). Birthdays were generally observed with rejoicing. So Pharaoh's ( Genesis 40:20); Job's ( Job 1:4, etc.); Herod's ( Matthew 14:6), though his day was perhaps rather that of his accession to the throne, compare  Hosea 7:5, "the day of our king."

The Jews latterly viewed birthday celebrations unfavorably, on account of the idolatrous rites and revelry associated with them. Josephus (Ant. 19:7, section 1) mentions that Herod, the brother of Herodias, who succeeded the Herod of  Matthew 14:6, "made a feast on his birthday, when all under his command partook of his mirth." This is in coincidence with Matthew and Mark ( Mark 6:21), for it proves that birthday feasts were observed in Herod's family, and that officers of the government customarily shared in them.

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

 2 Kings 19:3 (b) The figure is used to describe the great distress of Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem when they were surrounded by their enemies. They should have deliverance, as the mother has deliverance when her baby is born; however, they were still harassed and persecuted by their enemies. They were praying to GOD to deliver them out of their present difficulties, and this is compared to the birth of a child. (See also  Psalm 37:3).

 Psalm 58:8 (b) In this place is a plea that the plans of the wicked not be allowed to prosper, but rather to be defeated before they were put into practice.

 Ecclesiastes 6:3 (b) The frustration of a life of disappointment is compared to a baby that is born dead. That little one has less trouble than the one who lives a life full of trouble.

 Isaiah 66:9 (b) GOD in this place is promising a full deliverance eventually for Israel so that she will emerge from her captivity as a full-grown nation.

 John 3:3 (a) This figure is used to describe the miraculous change which takes place when a person is saved by the Lord Jesus Christ The Christian is brought out of bondage into liberty, out of darkness into light, out of helplessness into usefulness, out of death into life.

 Galatians 4:19 (a) The soul exercise of Paul over the needs of the Galatians for full consecration to the person of Jesus Christ is compared to a birth. Works, deeds and philosophies were occupying the minds and hearts of those in the church at Galatia while Christ was being ignored and displaced from His lordship. Paul wanted CHRIST to be reinstated in their thinking so that He would be paramount in their love and devotion.

 Revelation 12:2 (b) This difficult passage may refer to the sorrows of Israel in their slavery under the Romans at the time that Jesus was born.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

1: Γέννησις (Strong'S #1083 — Adjective — gennesis — ghen'-nay-sis )

"a birth, begetting, producing" (related to gennao, "to beget"), is used in  Matthew 1:18;  Luke 1:14 . Some mss. have genesis, "lineage, birth" (from ginomai, "to become").

2: Γενετή (Strong'S #1079 — Noun Feminine — genete — ghen-et-ay' )

"a being born, or the hour of birth" (related to genea, "race, generation"), is connected with ginomai, "to become, to be born," and is used in  John 9:1 .

FruitGenerationNature. Galatians 4:19 Revelation 12:2

King James Dictionary

Birth n. berth. L. partus, the participle of pario, to bear.

1. The act of coming into life, or of being born. Except in poetry, it is generally applied to human beings as the birth of a son. 2. Lineage extraction descent as, Grecian birth.

It is used of high or low extraction but is often used by way of distinction for a descent from noble or honorable parents and ancestors as a man of birth.

3. The condition in which a person is born.

A foe by birth to Troy.

4. That which is born that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable. 5. The act of bringing forth as, she had two children at a birth. 6. In a theological sense, regeneration is called the new birth. 7. Origin beginning as the birth of an empire.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) That which is born; that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable.

(2): (n.) The condition to which a person is born; natural state or position; inherited disposition or tendency.

(3): (n.) Origin; beginning; as, the birth of an empire.

(4): (n.) See Berth.

(5): (n.) The act of bringing forth; as, she had two children at a birth.

(6): (n.) Lineage; extraction; descent; sometimes, high birth; noble extraction.

(7): (n.) The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born; - generally applied to human beings; as, the birth of a son.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Ezekiel 16:4 Job 38:9 Luke 2:7,12 Leviticus 12:1-8 Luke 2:22 Genesis 17:10-12 Romans 4:11 Isaiah 13:8 Jeremiah 4:31 John 16:21,22 John 3:3-8 Galatians 6:15 Titus 3:5

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

BIRTH . See Child, Clean and Unclean, § 1.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

In Eastern countries child-birth is usually attended with much less pain and difficulty than in our northern regions; although Oriental females are not to be regarded as exempt from the common doom of woman, 'in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children' ( Genesis 3:16). It is however uncertain whether the difference arise from the effect of climate or from the circumstances attending advanced civilization; perhaps both causes operate, to a certain degree, in producing the effect. Climate must have some effect; but it is observed that the difficulty of childbirth, under any climate, increases with the advance of civilization, and that in any climate the class on which the advanced condition of society most operates finds the pangs of childbirth the most severe. Such consideration may probably account for the fact that the Hebrew women, after they had long been under the influence of the Egyptian climate, passed through the childbirth pangs with much more facility than the women of Egypt, whose habits of life were more refined and self-indulgent ( Exodus 1:19). The child was no sooner born than it was washed in a bath and rubbed with salt ( Ezekiel 16:4); it was then tightly swathed or bandaged to prevent those distortions to which the tender frame of an infant is so much exposed during the first days of life ( Job 38:9;  Ezekiel 16:4;  Luke 2:7;  Luke 2:12).

It was the custom at a very ancient period for the father, while music celebrated the event, to clasp the new-born child to his bosom, and by this ceremony he was understood to declare it to be his own ( Genesis 50:23;  Job 3:3;  Psalms 22:10). This practice was imitated by those wives who adopted the children of their handmaids ( Genesis 16:2;  Genesis 30:3-5). The messenger who brought to the father the first news that a son was born unto him was received with pleasure and rewarded with presents ( Job 3:3;  Jeremiah 20:15), as is still the custom in Persia and other Eastern countries. The birth of a daughter was less noticed, the disappointment at its not being a son subduing for the time the satisfaction which the birth of any child naturally occasions. Among the Israelites, the mother, after the birth of a son, continued unclean seven days; and she remained at home during the thirty-three days succeeding the seven of uncleanness, forming altogether forty days of seclusion. After the birth of a daughter the number of the days of uncleanness and seclusion at home was doubled. At the expiration of this period she went into the tabernacle or temple, and presented a yearling lamb, or, if she was poor, two turtle-doves and two young pigeons, as a sacrifice of purification ( Leviticus 12:1-8;  Luke 2:22) [CHILDREN].

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

bûrth ( γένεσις , génesis ):

(1) It was said by the angel beforehand of John the Baptist, "Many shall rejoice at his birth "; and when he was born Elisabeth said, "Thus hath the Lord done unto me ... to take away my reproach among men" ( Luke 1:14 ,  Luke 1:25 ). Among the ancient Hebrews barrenness was a "reproach" and the birth of a child, of a son especially, an occasion for rejoicing.

(2) This, no doubt, was due in part to the Messianic hope inspired and sustained by prophecy (see  Genesis 3:15 , where it was foretold that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; and subsequent prophecies too numerous to mention). Cases in point worth studying are found in  Genesis 4:1 , where Eve rejoices over the birth of her firstborn and cries, "I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh"; and  1 Samuel 1:20 , where Hannah exults over her firstborn, calling his name "Samuel," "because," she says, "I have asked him of Yahweh."

(3) The marvelous passage in  Isaiah 7:14 , "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel," must have intensified the longing and hope of every devout Jewish maiden to be a mother, if mayhap, under God, she might be the mother of Messiah - Immanuel! (Compare   Matthew 1:22 ,  Matthew 1:23;  Luke 1:13 f.) See Jesus Christ; Virgin Birth .