Summary

Now follows God’s punishment for the woman. The first part of the punishment is that there will be trouble and pain in pregnancy and childbearing. Without the fall, every woman would have borne children without pain and suffering. Now, grief comes with pregnancy and childbearing. There will be pain, severe pain; there will be tears that otherwise would not have been there.

Then there is a second part of the woman’s punishment. This is nothing but a consequence of sin also working in the woman. The Hebrew word translated here with desire occurs only three times in the Bible. The other two times are in Genesis 4:7 and Song of Solomon 7:10.

To understand the text we are dealing with now, it is very important to see what desire means in Genesis 4:7. It is about the yearning of sin, wanting to rule over Cain. The desire, the longing of Eve that the Lord is talking about here, is her desire to seek to rule over the man from now on. Sin is working in the woman in such a way that she no longer wants to submit to God’s order—the order where the husband is the first in charge and that she owes loving obedience to him. The consequence of this rebellion of the woman will then be, but he shall rule over you. The word used here for rule indicates a ruling with severity. The husband will respond with harshness to the woman who wants to rule. We see here how sin will permeate the relationship between a husband and his wife. The sin that we as humans brought into the world will also do great harm to the marital relationship. So, we are not dealing with a norm here, but with a statement from God. This statement shows that sin will also have devastating effects in the relationship between husband and wife.