The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he [is] an unwise son; for he should not stay long in [the place of] the breaking forth of children.
Ver. 13. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him] This commonwealth was before compared to a mother, Hos 1:1-11 Hosea 3:1,5. And as a woman that hath conceived is not for a while discerned to be with child till she biggen, and burnish, and grow near her time; so it is with sinners. See it elegantly set forth by St James, James 1:14,15. The sorrows of a travailing woman are known to be unexpected, exquisite, and inevitable; so shall God's judgments be upon the workers of iniquity, such as they shall never be able to avert, to avoid, or to abide. This is set forth by an apt similitude, ordinary in Holy Scripture, Mic 4:9-10 Psalms 48:7 Jeremiah 49:24; Jeremiah 50:43. And whereas some might say, A travailing woman is soon delivered; her pain is sharp, but short; she hath hope, not only of an end but of a birth; the joy whereof maketh her remember her anguish no more, John 16:21; the prophet replieth, that it is otherwise with Ephraim.
He is an unwise son] That will be the death both of his mother and of himself. He hath no wish to help himself, and to get free of the straits and perils of the birth, by passing through the narrow womb of repentance, and being born anew. God stands over him, stretching out his hands all the day long, to do a midwife's office, to take him out of the womb, as Psalms 21:9, to cut his navel and wash off his blood, to salt him, and swaddle him, as Ezekiel 16:4, but he hath no mind to come out of the filth of his sins, or to be washed from his wickedness. Rather than be regenerated (without which there is no heaven to be had, John 3:5, or freedom from deadly dangers upon earth), he will venture to stay a while at least (as the text here hath it עת) in the mouth of the matrix, though it cost him a choking. Such Ephraims we have not a few, that proceed no farther than to conviction; debarring themselves of the benefit of a thorough conversion. These go as far as Kadeshbarnea, they are nigh to God's kingdom, they are almost persuaded to be true Christians, they are come as far as the place of the breaking forth of children, but there they stick and are stifled; they are never brought forth from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins, and inheritance among the saints and sons of God, Acts 26:18. Oh make much of the least beginnings of grace (saith a reverend man), even those called repressing; since they prepare the heart for conversion. There is a faith in the true convert of no better perfection than that in the temporary, though he stay not there, as the other (being an unwise sot) doth. And although we bring forth good things (saith another), as Sarah's dead womb brought forth a child; it was not a child of nature's, but of the mere promise; yet it cannot be denied that a natural man (though he be theologically dead, yet he) is ethically alive, being to be wrought upon by arguments; and that grace doth for the most part prepare naturals before it bring in supernaturals; and if we hide our talent we are not allowed to expect the spirit of regeneration; as if we die in the wilderness of preparatory antecedaneous works, we never get to Canaan.