A LABOUR PAIN — specifically the pangs of childbirth, not pain in general. ⚠ At Matthew 24:8 the wars, famines and earthquakes are 'the beginning of ōdinōn,' and the whole force of the metaphor is that pain of this kind is PRODUCTIVE: it is the pain that precedes a birth, and it means the process is under way rather than that the end has come. The prophets use it exactly so (Isaiah 26:17; Jeremiah 22:23; Hosea 13:13), and later Jewish writing speaks of 'the birth pangs of the Messiah' as a fixed phrase. So the verse is doing the opposite of what a reader collecting disasters wants: it says these are the early contractions, and adds 'the end is not yet' two verses earlier. Paul uses the same image of the whole creation groaning as in childbirth (Romans 8:22). → first discussed at Matt 24:8