What is the meaning oftravailin the Bible?

The Hebrew word 'chul' which is the verb employed in those passages may be contrasted with the Hebrew word 'yalad.' This last is the word used in varied forms for the bearing of children, or offspring, man or beast, and occurs round about five hundred times. It covers the actual giving of birth, and sometimes refers to the pain of so doing.

But 'chul' is used under fifty times, and in its meaning is used of any deep suffering or exercise which is to result in something to come into manifestation. In relation to the birth of children, it is the word used in Ps. 51:6 'shapen.' The Revisers of 1881 in translating Isa. 45:10 altered the words, "hast thou brought forth", to "travailest"; (I suppose) because the verb does not mean so much the bringing forth as the pains of bearing preceding. In its fifty uses it is variously translated fear (of God), grief, anguish, pain, sorrow, wounding, (Saul wounded of archers), travail, tremble (at God's presence), dance, shake, etc. It is not so much the thought of bearing of offspring, as of various forms of suffering, or as we say, exercise, that accompany a certain action or event.

The words κόπος, πόνος, μόχθος, and ὠδίν have similar meanings, but there are different ideas connected with them. ὠδίν occurs but four times in the N.T. It refers literally to the pangs of a woman in child-birth, in which sense it occurs in 1 Thess. 5:3; twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God's judgements are poured out upon the earth, Matt. 24:8; Mark 13:8; and once in reference to the pains of death endured by the Lord. Acts 2:24.

μόχθος (from μογέω, 'to labour, be in distress') occurs three times in the N.T. It has been judged to refer to the toil which is the lot of man in this world of sin, answering to "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." This seems to be confirmed by Paul's twice using it in reference to his labours (travail, A.V.), having to work night and day in addition to his apostolic work. 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8. In 2 Cor. 11:27 it is joined with κόπος, where Paul describes his life of labour and toil ("weariness [κό.] and painfulness [μό.]" A.V.), as well as the dangers he passed through.

-κόπος (from κόπτω, 'to strike') occurs often in the N.T. In the A.V. it is translated 'weariness' in 2 Cor. 11:27; 'trouble' and 'labour' often. Perhaps the weariness of labour and trouble marks this word.

In the LXX three of the above words are attributed to Job's wife in her despair under the dealings of Satan. "The pangs (ὠδῖνες) and pains (πόνοι) of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows (μόχθων)" — having lost her sons and daughters. Job. 2:9.

Then the other word, "perverseness," is rather "labor," or "travail." It is the word which, as we have seen, gives us the first part of the name "Amalek" — amal. It is not work: man in Eden was to work; but toil, the drudgery of work, most of all that which the heart away from God incites to. "All things are full of labor," says the preacher: "man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing." "All the labor of man is for the mouth, but the soul is not filled." And from this the grace of God in Christ would draw us off: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

It would seem that because it is "your bodies" it would involve suffering.

The New Testament word is tribulation = tribulare — to rub out corn. The tribulum was a wooden instrument fitted with iron spikes for rubbing out corn. And though tribulation cannot be anything but grievous to nature, yet we shall glory in it if God's purpose in it lays hold upon us.

Hal’hul - Travail-pain

Hav’i lah - Anguish (as travail-pain)

Lod - Travail: to bear

Lud - To the firebrand: travailing