Jeremiah 30:6
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 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?
The question exposes an unnatural sight — men doubled over and clutching at their bodies as if seized by labor pains, every face drained of color — to portray anguish, terror and bodily distress of the severest kind, a mental anguish made visible in posture and paleness. In its setting this cry belongs to the prophecy of Jeremiah 30–31 concerning Israel's restoration, where the promised return from captivity is presented as sure. It foretells the time of Jacob's trouble, a time of unprecedented, unparalleled affliction, fear and distress for God's people just before Christ's second coming. That trouble comes after Christ leaves the heavenly sanctuary, plunging God's people into scenes of affliction and distress.
In that fearful time darkness covers the earth and the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God without an intercessor. Restraint upon the wicked is removed and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent, whose anger, kindled by the power attending the last warning, is turned against all who received the message. God's people are thus in danger and peril from the wicked seeking to destroy them. In their final struggle they cry to God for deliverance and wrestle with Him in earnest prayer.
Even in that distress the verse promises that God's people shall be saved and delivered out of the trouble. The saints are delivered by the voice of God. The same imagery also describes the terror of the wicked in the day of divine judgment at Christ's return, when those who rejected God's mercy grow weak and turn pale with fear and despair before Him, suffering anguish like a woman in labor. Then, while the wicked are pale with despair, the righteous are comforted and filled with joy.