Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 26:18

"We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen." — Isaiah 26:18 (ASV)

We have as it were brought forth wind. — Left to themselves, the longing expectations of Israel had been frustrated. It was, so to speak (the words imply the prophet’s awareness of the boldness of the figure), like a false pregnancy, a disease with no birth as its outcome.

Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. — Better, Neither were the inhabitants of the world brought to birth, the verb “to fall” being used, as in Wisdom 7:3 and Homer, Iliad 19.10, for the delivery of a woman with child. These words continue the picture of the fruitlessness of mere human strivings and expectations. The Septuagint, “They that are in the tombs shall rise,” connects with John 5:28-29. (Compare the similar imagery in Isaiah 37:3.) The “creation” was “subject unto vanity,” as in Romans 8:20-22.