We have been with child
Like women with child; we have been full of hopes and expectations of great things, of deliverance from our enemies, and of the kingdom of Christ being at hand: we have been in pain;
in great distress and anxiety, and in fervent and frequent prayer, travailing in birth, which we looked upon as forerunners of a happy issue of things: we have as it were brought forth wind;
all our hopes have proved abortive, and we have been disappointed in our expectations: we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth:
or, "salvations" have "not been wrought in the earth" F6; this explains what is meant by bringing forth wind; salvation and deliverance out of the hand of the enemy not being wrought, as was expected: neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen;
worldly men, the great men, the kings of the earth; particularly such as commit fornication with the whore of Rome, Popish persecuting princes; these as yet are not fallen, though they shall in the battle of Armageddon.