To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 NIV

 Many teachers throughout the ages have tangled this scripture into a proof that God had in mind, from the start, for males to dominate females—married or unmarried, Christian or non-Christian, in church or outside the church, for all times.  These teachers insist that God had already created such a hierarchy, though the creation account states that God gave both male and female dominion over the earth together (Genesis 1:27-28) and was simply reiterating it.  They see scriptures that instruct wives to submit to their husbands (see my article on submission: as further proof of intended domination. Unfortunately, such ideas originated from pagan surroundings instead of the light of Jesus*.

The Hebrew word “mashal,” translated as “rule” in Genesis 3:16 means “to have dominion or to dominate;” when the Rabbis translated the Old Testament into Greek in the mid 200s BC (Septuagint), they used the word “kurieo” meaning to “lord over” or “control.”  The only uses of this word in the New Testament describe the Gentile rulers, who Jesus warned against–those who lord over one another (Luke 22:25) and the demon who overpowered and beat the seven sons of Sceva (Acts:19:16)—both were motivated by the devil, so in no way was God instructing Adam to “rule over” Eve!  Notice that God was addressing Eve, not Adam; he didn’t say, “Now Adam, this is what you must do;” rather, God described Adam’s future actions as a “fallen” man.  However, the Greek word “hupotasso,” translated as “submit” is entirely different and means to “voluntarily come under” as in cooperating—what all Christians are to do for each other (Ephesians 5:21).  The first is to demand; the second is to give.  Nowhere does the New Testament tell husbands—or any men, to dominate or lord over wives—or any women just because they’re women (or lord over anyone), but rather to serve them (Ephesians 5:25-33).

For some reason, Adam and Eve wanted the Knowledge of Good and Evil though they already knew Good since God is good and everything he made was good.  Taken in context, this confrontation of their sin describes, rather than a hierarchy, the ways they would experience that knowledge of evil, first hand–in the form of pain and struggle in working the land, in giving birth and in their relationship.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”  To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you,  and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:16-19 NIV

God’s response to Adam and Eve’s sin is written in a type of mirrored poetry in which the results of their mutual sin are somewhat paired.  Eve’s “painful labor” in childbirth is mirrored with Adam’s “painful toil” in farming—the Hebrew uses essentially the same word for both. It’s a sad prophecy that the areas of their fruitfulness would be hindered—by hard, painful work. Though their fruitfulness—Eve’s work to “give birth” and Adam’s working of the ground to “eat food from it” would continue, it would be tough going.

Additionally, the two sets of results or punishments for their sin are mirrored. Eve will have a longing for her husband, but apparently, he’d take advantage of her making herself vulnerable to him and rule over her (v.16b) while Adam will need the benefits of the soil, but it will fight him (v18).  The Hebrew word translated as desire, “teshookaw” means a stretching out after, a longing, a desire.  Some teachers attach a sinister meaning, insisting that Eve was after Adam to take him over just as sin was going after Cain (Genesis 4:7) and in fact, the same word is used.  However, the same word is also used in Song of Solomon (7:10) to describe the longing of a man and woman for one another—the latter is the way lexicons define the word (Brown-Driver-Briggs).

Eve, in making herself vulnerable, would want her husband Adam to love her in return but Adam would think of her as trouble and rebuff her.  It seems likely that God put that longing in Eve or she would probably turn away from his domineering behavior and there wouldn’t be any multiplying—no more humans on the earth.  So she longs to be with Adam—they’d always been together before, after all she was made from a part of him, though he would push her around and the childbearing that results from their union would bring intense pain.

Adam had also had a close relationship with the “ground” right from the start, first having come from it, then working the beautiful Garden of Eden. But now that relationship had gone sour as well. Adam was vulnerable to the “ground” because of his need for food—he and Eve had only “seed-bearing plants” to eat so Adam had to grow their food, or they’d starve but the interaction with that “ground” would also be painful.

But the ground couldn’t help it, because “the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice” (Romans 8:20).  Similarly, Adam was trapped by sin in his domination of Eve.

Then Jesus came to set us free! There’s hope—hope for Eve, Adam and all of us born since!  God didn’t leave them there; he announced that Eve’s seed—not Adam’s (v.15) would crush the serpent’s head!  Jesus would be (and now has been) born of a virgin woman–not a man and overcome Satan for all time and beyond!

“…the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19) and in Jesus, a husband “must love his wife as he loves himself” (Ephesians 5:33).

*“Plato (428 BC) an ardent follower of Socrates, passed his low view of women to his most influential disciple Aristotle (384 BC), who taught that males were to be the dominators, while females and slaves were meant to be dominated, and that all females were inferior to males.  Aristotle wrote ‘we should look upon the female state of being as though it were a deformity, though one which occurs in the ordinary course of nature.” Gundry, Women Be Free, 18.