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An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

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Intertextuality Pair

John 16:21 → Isaiah 26:16-21

Allusion

Later text

John 16:21BSB

A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.

Earlier text

Isaiah 26:16-21BSB

O LORD, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer. As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD. We were with child; we writhed in pain; but we gave birth to wind. We have given no salvation to the earth, nor brought any life into the world. Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead. Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves a little while until the wrath has passed. For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:45

Significance

Jesus' birth-pang metaphor in John 16:21 — "A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy" — employs the language of Isa 26:16-21, which uses the imagery of a woman in labor to describe Israel's anguish and then anticipates resurrection: "Your dead will live; their bodies will rise... Come, my people, enter your rooms... For behold, the LORD is coming out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth" (26:19-21). The labor imagery in the OT consistently marks the birth pangs of the messianic era (Mic 4:9-10; Isa 66:7-9; Jer 30:6-7), and Jesus appropriates it to describe the disciples' coming grief over his death and their subsequent joy at his resurrection. The specific Isaianic context of Isa 26 adds eschatological weight: the joy after travail is not merely emotional relief but participation in the resurrection that Isa 26:19 promises, connecting the disciples' post-resurrection joy to the larger eschatological harvest Jesus' death inaugurates.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme