3:16 — To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
[T - OL ]
If the prolixity of a pronouncement is any indication of the responsibility assigned to the sentencee, then the woman is held lease responsible for all that has happened. Of her only two things are said, both—though not without emphasis—are without comments.
First, for her part in their disobedience, Yahweh—note that Yahweh is the subject here—will greatly multiply her pain in childbearing. In our ennui in reading this we often miss the most important point here: she will live! As we have already said in our comments on the judgement on the serpent, in judgement Yahweh remains merciful, even if here, a second line ("with pain you will give birth to children") is added to emphasize the pain that shall be hers. I repeat what I said earlier on v15: if the serpent should lie to the woman that "surely you will not die" then Yahweh was prepared to take its lie and turned it to work for the good not, as Paul says, "those who love him" (Rom 8:28), but for those who were sinners. Here already was the seed of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ! "For Christ died for sins . . . the righteous for the unrighteous . . ." (1 Pet 3:18). What glory!
The second half of the pronoucement declares a radical shift in the nature of her relationship with her husband: "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Before this, she had been "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh" to her hushand. Adam would soon be judged for his part in the debacle, but already his failure to lead is in view here. But his responsibility to lead came by virtue, not of command, but of being the first formed, the first and directly commanded not to eat of the tree. From now on, however, "he shall rule over you." The verb "rule," mashal, is capable of a broad range of meanings in Hebrew, and depends on the context and the real situations in which the function arises. It is used, e.g., of the sun and moon 'ruling' over the day and the night. In 4:7, Cain was told that sin's desire was for him, but he had to 'rule' over it, implying reining it. At a minimum, this declaration over the First Woman would mean that, from now on, her husband would have the greatest, if not the final, say in their relationship. I often joke that I always have the final say in our home, and it is usually "Yes, darling." That is good for a laugh in an ice-breaker; we have better make sure that it is not the reality.
The other element of the shift in her relationship with her husband is that henceforth "your desire will be for your husband." Susan Foh has proposed that this means that the woman's desire would be to dominate or control her husband.1 She based her reading on the similar use of the word in 4:7, where it is said of Cain that "sin's desire is to have you." This suggests that what sin wants to do is to dominate Cain. Foh's proposal is possible, even tantalizing. None of the major Hebrew lexica, however, supports Foh's reading. But, since the verb involved here, teshuqah, occurs only infrequently in the OT (a total of only three time: here; 4:7 and Song 7:10), lexical support does not count for much. Whether we accept or reject Foh's proposal (it is not generally supported) the fact of the sentence remains, that is, as a result of their rebellion the husband-wife relationship has become—instead of mutual support and encouragement—one of inordinate pining by the woman for him (or, ala Foh, of incessant desire to boss over him) and of his domination over her, both of which open the door to a plethora of abusive possibilities. In Christ, however, we have the hope of—at lease a substantial if partial—restoration in this life as, Paul exhorts us, "husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her," while wives are exalted to "respect [their] husbands" (Eph 5:25 & 33; cf., also Col 3:18-19).
You may wish to read the following commentaries-expositions:
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2016