A.T. Robertson Commentary Matthew 24:8

"But all these things are the beginning of travail." — Matthew 24:8 (ASV)

The beginning of travail (αρχη οδινων). The word means birth-pangs and the Jews used the very phrase for the sufferings of the Messiah which were to come before the coming of the Messiah (Book of Jubilees, 23:18; Apoc. of Baruch 27-29). But the word occurs with no idea of birth as the pains of death (Psalms 18:5; Acts 2:24). These woes, says Jesus, are not a proof of the end, but of the beginning.