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.
The sorrows of a travailing woman - calamities sudden and agonizing (Jeremiah 30:6).
He is an unwise son - in not foreseeing the impending judgment and averting it by penitence (Proverbs 22:3).
For he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. When Israel might deliver himself from calamity by the pangs of penitence, he ought not to bring ruin on himself by so long deferring a new birth unto repentance, llke a child whose mother has not strength to bring it forth, and which therefore remains so long in the passage from the womb as to run the risk of death (2 Kings 19:3; Isaiah 37:3. God in the case of His people suffers no abortion; He gives strength to bring forth, spiritually raising them by the Holy Spirit from the dark deadness of sin, and at last literally from the womb of the grave, 13:14; Isaiah 66:9).