Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Armadillo]

Genesis 3:16 talks about God’s curse to eve, saying that she will have pain in childbirth yet she will desire her husband and her husband will rule over her. How should “desire her husband” be understood? My understanding is that the curse entails despite the intense pain of childbirth, women would apparently continue to desire getting married and consequently having kids. However, it seems common for evangelicals to say this verse means that women would desire to be unsubmissive to men despite being “cursed” to be ruled over by them.

[jimwalton]

John Walton says: A verb-less clause, to be taken in present tense. Descriptive rather than prescriptive. She desires to carry out an ordained function: childbearing. Now, however, there is a new urgency brought on by the reality of death. And she is dependent on Adam to fulfill that function. In the NIV Application Commentary, p. 228-229, 239, he writes, "One’s basic or inherent instincts, in this case, a desire to procreate, which necessitates the cooperation of the male. The woman’s desire, which renders her dependent, is traceable to her need to fulfill her maternal instinct. And, sociologically, her needs put him in a position to dominate.

"And though it has always been true that she needed him to procreate, she now feels an urgency because of the threat of extinction."

With a slightly different slant, Janson Condren, in JETS JUne 2017): "The term doesn’t mean either an affection desire for her husband (sexual desire, SoS 7.10), or a desire to contend with him adversarially for leadership, but rather speaks of a 'return' to her husband. After she eats the fruit, their intimacy is tragically subverted and their relational separation is on full display as the man tells God the woman is to blame (3.12). Nevertheless, the woman returns to the man in an effort to recapture the original unity of male and female (2.24). She is attempting to return to the one with whom she intrinsically belongs. She is trying to recapture God’s original design for the husband-wife relationship."

These are both evangelical interpretations.