Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
Ask ... whether a man doth travail with child - consult all the authorities, men or books, you can, you will not find an instance. Yet in that coming day "men" will be seen "with their hands" pressed "on their loins," as women do to repress their pangs. God will drive men, through pain, to gestures more fitting a woman than a man (Jeremiah 4:31; Jeremiah 6:24). The metaphor is often used to express the previous pain followed by the sudden deliverance of Israel, as in the case of a woman in child-birth (Isaiah 66:7-9).
All faces are turned into paleness - properly the colour of herbs blasted and fading: the green paleness of one in jaundice, the sickly paleness of terror.