Meditation Text: Genesis 3:16 & 20
Suggested Reading: Ephesians 5:22–33
After speaking first to the devil-possessed serpent and cursing him, the Lord goes on to address the woman about her sin. He will get to the man in a moment, but in the same order in which the perpetrators of the rebellion acted, so the Lord pronounces judgment over each one in turn, and in verse 16, he singles out the woman. We might have expected God to deal with the man and the woman as one unit since he had brought them together as husband and wife and declared the two one (Gen. 2:24). Yet each is addressed individually, which means that every person has his own responsibility before the Lord. As Paul later writes, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Rom. 14:10). On Judgment Day, no one will be able to hide behind a spouse or anyone else; “each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12). It’s a question we all need to consider: am I ready to stand before God as Judge?
Pain Multiplied
The Lord’s message to the woman is not very long, but it certainly is hauntingly powerful. It’s a word to both this woman and all women at the same time: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” In 1 Timothy 2:8–15, Paul connects this first woman to all women when speaking of a woman’s role in church life, citing the events of Genesis 3:1–7 and later also 3:16. He concludes, “Yet she [singular] will be saved through childbearing—if they [plural] continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (v. 15). All women are caught up in the first woman’s sin and its resulting punishment: any woman who has given birth can give her personal testimony that God’s judgment is still in effect. Even with all the medical advances of today, childbirth remains difficult and painful.
That is the first consequence of the woman’s sin mentioned by the Lord: increased pain in childbearing. Apparently, some level of pain existed before the Fall, but now it will be multiplied significantly. This certainly refers to a surge in the physical anguish of the body but it also includes the emotional grief of the heart; the Hebrew word for “pain” can also be translated as “sorrow.” The woman’s sorrow will be multiplied—not just during pregnancy and delivery either, for the Hebrew word for “childbearing” has in mind the entire process from conceiving to birthing and beyond. From beginning to end, the woman will experience pain and sorrow in bringing forth children. From the first menstrual cramp to morning sickness to labor and delivery to the last hot flash, the entire process of bearing children is fraught with grief, sorrow, and pain.
And that’s just if life follows its normal course. Some experience the added sorrow of not receiving any children or receiving fewer than hoped for. More than a few Christian couples know the sorrow of infertility. How many tears have been shed over what might not ever be? Right in Genesis we see women (and men) struggling with this sorrow: Sara, who was barren for so long, or Rebekah for whom Isaac had to especially pray. Rachel was so filled with grief that she cried out to Jacob, “Give me children or I shall die!” (Gen. 30:1). Judgment befalls the woman for her sin, and it is miserable.
Friction
The next consequence is no better: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” There’s been a lot of discussion over what this means. Is this the woman’s sexual desire for her husband? As if to say, though the woman will know much grief in childbearing, yet she still will desire sexual union with her husband (and thus the possibility of becoming pregnant is unavoidable). But if that is the case, it’s hard to see how that is a form of punishment for either the woman or the man. Isn’t that what they were created for in the beginning, and didn’t God give them to each other to “become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24)? Does anyone consider a wife’s sex drive a bad thing? And how would the adjoining phrase “and he shall rule over you” be connected to her desire for intercourse?
A better interpretation is to see this not as her desire for sexual intimacy but rather as her desire for control over her husband, to basically rule over him. This makes sense in the wider context; it also fits well with the next phrase. In this sentence, the Hebrew word “and” can legitimately be translated as “but” in order to bring out the contrast: “Your desire will be for your husband but he will rule over you.”1 The woman will—contrary to the way she was created—want to dominate her husband but the husband will instead dominate her.
The two verbs used in the second part of verse 16 are used by Moses in the neighboring chapter where their sense is more plain. In Genesis 4:7, the Lord says to Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but2 you must rule over it.” Its desire is for you, that is, to control you, to rule over you; but you (Cain) are called instead to master your desire and control it. That requires a battle of the will. In the same way, the wife will desire to rule over her husband but will not succeed; after a battle of their two wills, he will end up ruling over her. It’s a distortion of the creation relationship between husband and wife. Eve had already once usurped Adam’s role as head (and he had passively allowed it to happen), and now her punishment is that she will continually want to have that position again. But, at the end of the struggle, her husband will rule over her.
“Rule” is a forceful word. By itself in Scripture, it can be either a beneficial ruling or a domineering ruling; here it tends toward the latter because of the friction between the wife’s desire to exercise authority and the husband’s God-given authority in the marriage. Gone is the wife’s voluntary following of her husband’s loving lead; in its place is the judgment that, as much as she strives to set the direction for her husband, he will impose his will on her. The glorious and harmonious fellowship of husband and helper created by God has been perverted by our sin. All that’s left is a simmering tension between husband and wife that undermines their one-flesh unity.
Hardship & Hope
All this is hard on a woman, isn’t it? Inside of her a battle rages. Created to follow her husband’s guidance, she now has an instinctual resistance to it. Created to focus on helping her husband, a woman now frequently adopts her own agenda, and trouble erupts between the two of them. Additionally, the husband no longer has the instinct to love his wife selflessly and lead her gently, and often finds himself being rough or domineering. It doesn’t take long for these distortions to show up in Scripture; soon we meet Lamech who abuses the oneness of the marriage bond by taking two wives and arrogantly parades his might before them (Gen. 4:19–24). Instead of sacrificially protecting his wife, Abram lies about Sarai and puts her at great risk (Gen. 12:10–20). Later, Sarai pushes Abram to make Hagar pregnant but then blames him for the resulting trouble (Gen. 16:1–5). Rachel is irrationally upset that Jacob hasn’t given her children and later goes behind his back to steal Laban’s idols (Gen. 30:1; 31:19). Michal wrongly despises her husband David and dies childless (2 Sam. 6:16, 23). Hosea’s wife Gomer, redeemed out of the life of prostitution, defies her husband and returns to her old ways (Hosea 3:1–3). God’s righteous judgment over the woman has made life hard for her.
And yet she lives! And, more than that, she will produce life! A ray of hope shines through in verse 20: “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” This shows that Adam was listening to the Lord and understood the grace granted to both of them. By their actions, Adam and Eve had brought upon themselves death, but the Lord intervened to promise them life. Adam had no right to father a child and Eve had no right to conceive and give birth; yet, together, under God’s blessing, they would bring forth new life. Eve would have pain and sorrow in the child-bearing process, but she would bear children! Humanity would not end there and then. One generation after another would come forth from Eve until at last the promised Seed of the woman would be born to do His work of crushing the head of the serpent.
Healing Begins
When that Seed of the woman arrives, He will not only destroy Satan but also bring forgiveness and healing to the woman and the man—to all who belong to Him. At His birth, God assigned Him a special name: “He shall be called, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Jesus Christ rescues women and men from sin’s guilt and sin’s consequences, for He bore our curse for us on the cross! Every woman who puts her trust in Jesus will begin to experience the lifting of her guilt and sorrows in her marriage, her child-bearing, and in all of life, for sin’s curse has been shattered and renewal is underway. Christian women and men have been filled with the Spirit of Christ; Christ leads them back to the harmonious relationships of Paradise.
That’s what Paul is writing about in Ephesians 5: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” This is the very opposite of “your desire shall be for your husband,” to rule him. And notice that this is a command to the married woman, not to the husband. The husband has the command to love her as Christ loves the Church, and that will keep him plenty busy. His task is to make her submission easy by putting her ahead of himself and leading by sacrificing for her good, not to compel her to submit. The wife is commanded to willingly follow her husband’s Christ-like lead. And now she can! And she will, for she is already being led by the Spirit of Christ to follow the will of the Father as He designed marriage to be from the beginning.
Submission has its limits, of course; no husband may lead his wife into sin and, if he does, she not only may but must resist and even disobey as the apostles teach (Acts 5:29). But the Christian wife will know happiness and joy when she embraces the freedom Christ gives her and loves her Lord by loving her husband according to the Creator’s design: serving her husband as his glorious helper and following him as her glorious head.
1. The Christian Standard Bible translates: “yet he will rule over you.”
2. Here the ESV translates the identical Hebrew conjunction as “but,” not “and.” It’s a translator’s decision, depending on how the sentence is understood in context.
Rev. Peter H. Holtvlüwer is minister of Ancaster Canadian Reformed Church (ON) and editor of Christ’s Psalms, Our Psalms.