A note read: “Trial instrument, made under difficult conditions with no tools and materials.” The note was signed “Dachau 1941, Franciszek Kampa.” Art dealers found the painful note inside a handcrafted violin in Hungary. A Jewish prisoner was the craftsman, and the dealers said that the proportions and structure were proficient. He was a master craftsman trying to find hope in the worst of circumstances. The art dealers named the instrument a “violin of hope.”[1]
Many people have known a season of living with the consequences of oppression. We might not be a holocaust survivor, but we have experienced some level of trauma.
The text from Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19 for July 16 reflects this condition. The prophecy is a lament for those who are oppressed by conditions beyond their control. They have tried everything they know to relieve the pain, but they feel like a woman with contractions “giving birth to wind.”
This metaphor suggests a pain deeper than miscarriage or stillbirth. They feel as if everything they have tried to create has turned out to be nothing.
16 O Lord, in our distress we cried out to you,
pouring forth our prayers
as we suffered your chastisement.
17 As a woman who is pregnant
writhes and cries out in her agony
when her time of delivery is near,
so were we because of you, O Lord.
18 We were with child and writhed with pain,
but we gave birth only to wind.
We have achieved no salvation for the earth,
and no one has been born to inhabit the world.
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[1] Justin Spike, “Violin of Hope,” 5/1/2025, accessed 6/4/2026.
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