Romanos 8:19

‘For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God.'

Paul vividly presents the whole of creation as waiting, as it were, with bated breath, for the time when the sons of God will be revealed. In Jewish tradition ‘creation' can refer to either the whole of creation, animate and inanimate, or be seen as a term for mankind as a whole But while it is true that only mankind can wait with ‘earnest expectation', (if we take what Paul says literally), it must be seen as very probable that Paul is here speaking metaphorically (compare Isaías 24:4; Isaías 35:1; Isaías 55:12; Jeremias 4:28; Jeremias 12:4). He rather pictures the whole of the universe as waiting with earnest expectation for the time of redemption. Only sinful man is unaware of it so as to be taken by surprise.

‘The earnest expectation.' Literally ‘the waiting with outstretched head', thus a ‘straining forward in anticipation'.