Genesis 3:16 - Exposition

Unto the woman he said. Passing judgment on her first who had sinned first, but cursing neither her nor her husband, as "being candidates for restoration" (Tertullian). The sentence pronounced on Eve was twofold. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception . A hendiadys for "the sorrow of thy conception" (Gesenius, Bush), though this is not necessary. The womanly and wifely sorrow of Eve was to be intensified, and in particular the pains of parturition were to be multiplied (cf. Jeremiah 31:8 ). The second idea is more fully explained in the next clause. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children . Literally, sons , daughters being included. The pains of childbirth are in Scripture emblematic of the severest anguish both of body and mind (cf. Psalms 48:7 ; Micah 4:9 , Micah 4:10 ; 1 Thessalonians 5:3 ; John 16:21 ; Revelation 12:2 ). The gospel gives a special promise to mothers ( 1 Timothy 2:15 ). "By bringing forth is also meant bringing up after the birth, as in Genesis 50:23 " (Ainsworth). And thy desire shall be to thy husband . תְּשׁוּקָה , from שׁוּק to run, to have a vehement longing for a thing, may have the same meaning here as in Song of Solomon 7:10 (Dathe, Rosenmüller, Delitzsch, Keil, Bohlen, Kalisch, Alford); but is better taken as expressive of deferential submissiveness, as in Genesis 4:7 (Luther, Calvin, Le Clerc, Lunge, Macdonald, Speaker's 'Commentary'.) Following the LXX . ( α ̓ ποστροφη ì ), Murphy explains it as meaning, "The determination of thy will shall be yielded to thy husband." According to the analogy of the two previous clauses, the precise import of this is expressed in the next, though by many it is regarded as a distinct item in the curse (Kalisch, Alford, Clarke, Wordsworth). And he shall rule over thee . Not merely a prophecy of woman's subjection, but an investiture of man with supremacy over the woman; or rather a confirmation and perpetuation of that authority which had been assigned to the man at the creation. Woman had been given him as an helpmeet ( Genesis 2:18 ), and her relation to the man from the first was constituted one of dependence. It was the reversal of this Divinely-established order that had led to the fall ( Genesis 3:17 ). Henceforth, therefore, woman was to be relegated to, and fixed in, her proper sphere of subordination. On account of her subjection to man's authority a wife is described as the possessed or subjected one of a lord ( Genesis 20:3 ; Deuteronomy 20:1-20 :22), and a husband as the lord of a woman ( Exodus 21:3 ). Among the Hebrews the condition of the female sex was one of distinct subordination, though not of oppression, and certainly not of slavery, as it too often has been in heathen and Mohammedan countries. Christianity, while placing woman on the same platform with man as regards the blessings of the gospel ( Galatians 3:28 ), explicitly inculcates her subordination to the man in the relationship of marriage ( Ephesians 5:22 ; Colossians 3:18 ; 1 Peter 3:1 )