Mark 13:8

the beginnings of sorrows rather, of birth-pangs. The word only occurs in four places in the N. T. Here; in the parallel, Matthew 24:8; in Acts 2:24, "having loosed the pains(rather the pangs) of death;" and 1 Thessalonians 5:3, "then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail(or birth-pangs) upon a woman with child." The occurrence of the expression here is remarkable, and recals other places of Scripture, where Creation is said to be "groaning and travailing" (Romans 8:22), waiting for its regeneration(Matthew 19:28) or New Birth. For the fulfilment of these prophecies comp. Jos. Ant. xix. 1; Tac. Ann. xii. 38, xv. 22, xvi. 13; Sen. Ep. xci. Tacitus describing the epoch (Hist. i. 2) calls it "opimum casibus, atrox præliis, discors seditionibus, ipsâ etiam pace sævum." These "signs" then ushered in the epoch of the destruction of Jerusalem, but realized on a larger scale they are to herald the End of all things; comp. 1Th 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:2.