Scripture
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Audio Commentary
Abstract
Genesis 3:16 pronounces the woman’s sentence, shaped to the character of her sin: sorrow multiplied and subjection given, as a pride that sought to subvert God’s authority is answered with pain and submission. The passage insists that God Himself passes this sentence — the curse is no cosmic accident beyond His control — even as it holds that His mercy is visible within the punishment. For every grief the Fall unleashed, the abiding word is that God’s grace can always be found in the midst of it.
Brief Observations
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A sentence shaped to the sin — The woman’s sentence reflects the character of her sin: as it sprang from pleasure and pride, so her punishment is sorrow and subjection.
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Multiplied pain — Not childbirth alone but pain generally is multiplied by the Fall; even a morally well-ordered life remains subject to this world’s natural calamities, and sin can trap a person inside grief and hinder healing.
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Pain that reaches beyond delivery — The multiplied pain of childbirth points also to the dangers that follow it — infant mortality a grave risk until only recently in history.
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God Himself passes the sentence — The curse on creation is no cosmic mishap beyond God’s control; He is the One who passes the sentence — and also the One who works all things for good and comforts His people in affliction.
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Sorrow and subjection — Because Eve’s pride sought to subvert God’s authority over her, her punishment is subjection to her husband’s authority; in this commentary’s reading, the Fall disrupted the perfect complementary relationship man and woman enjoyed before it.
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Mercy within the punishment — As throughout these curses, God’s mercy is visible within His punishment for the eyes of faith.
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Grace in the midst of grief — This is the heart of it for all suffering: God’s grace can always be found in the midst of it.
Full Commentary
The sentence given to the woman is a reflection of the character of her sin. Her sin was to gratify her pleasure and her pride, so her punishment would be sorrow and subjection. The specific part of the pain mentioned in this passage involves childbirth. Anyone who has witnessed childbirth knows how painful it is even when circumstances are ideal. When things go sideways during childbirth, the complications are enough to kill the woman rapidly.
I saw this firsthand with my wife just weeks prior to recording this podcast. She gave birth to our second child, a baby girl, and just 20 minutes after delivery she developed a severe postpartum hemorrhage. She lost 20% of her blood in one hour. The hemorrhage was increasing at the moment her medical team implanted a device to save her life. If she was left unattended or in the hands of a less skillful team — she would have been dead in another 60 minutes. Suffice it to say the words of this curse reverberated in my mind most of the night, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children.”
But it’s not just childbirth which would be commenced in pain as a consequence of the Fall. There were now many doors open to threats which could devastate the weaker sex. Rape, assault, robbery, domestic violence, all of these evils are a result of our first parents defying God. Sin is what has made this world a vale of tears. Sin broke the dam and flooded the world with pain and grief. Sin twisted God’s creation and made it something it ought never to have been. I think a woman in the painful throes of labor is an apt analogy to describe the reality of this world without God. People go through so much physical and emotional devastation that all they can think to do is scream in agony. That’s real, and while there are many beautiful and joyful aspects to life we should never forget this reality of pain.
As a consequence of the Fall God said our pain would be multiplied. Even if you live a morally well-calibrated life, you’re still subject to the natural calamities of life in this world. You could do everything right and still get cancer. You could do everything right and your child gets cancer. There is simply an arbitrary element to tragedy within the limitations of human existence. But that’s not even the worst of it. Your own sins can yet multiply these arbitrary tragedies into little pits of Hell. It’s painful and devastating to lose a loved one, but it’s far worse to lose a loved one and then endlessly fight with your surviving loved ones. When grief is not received well it can cause all kinds of backbiting, betrayal, and saying things you don’t mean.
Sin can also trap you inside grief and prevent you from healing. Few things disrupt your ability to process grief quite like sin. Sin leads to blaming God for the tragedy. Sin leads to viewing yourself as an interminable victim with no ability to walk properly forward through the pain. Sin convinces you to form idols and develop substance addictions instead of leaning into Jesus or believing in the power of prayer. Sin can cause your grief to pass deeper into your soul and fester there until you use your own pain to justify multiplying your sins. A grieved person who falls into temptation becomes the kind of person who ends up hurting many other people around him. — thus multiplying the pain further into the lives of others.
The curse multiplying the woman’s pain in childbirth also points to the various issues which might come after delivery. Infant mortality was a significant risk until very recently on the historical timeline. Even if your child lives, he may grow up to become wicked and foolish, and his misbehavior will become an anchor of pain weighing down your life. I find one thing to be true of most people: you need only scratch beneath the surface and you’ll uncover some tragedy the person is grieving. This is just a truism of life and rather than avoid pain, we should endeavor to become equipped such that we can endure it in a way that honors God and benefits our community.
Also notice that God is the one who passes the sentence. It’s not as if the curse on creation is some cosmic mishap which goes beyond His direct control. He’s the one who issued it. And He did it because humbling us for our sins is more important than securing a paradisal existence. We ought to be silent with our complaints against God concerning the unfair nature of this world, because God is a righteous Judge and if He has issued this punishment then we deserve it. God is a loving Father, and His primary concern is the well-being of our spirits such that our hearts are humble and contrite enough to see Him.
Despite the bleak outlook I’ve just spent the last few minutes painting, we can rest assured that God will work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose for them. Although God is the one who punished creation, God is also the One who comforts us in our sorrows and God is also the One who redeems us from them. Whatever good our pain brings us is brought to us by God. The gospel teaches us that God is so good, His goodness prevails against all the evils of this world even when we square up and face them with sober eyes.
Eve’s pride tempted her to subvert God’s authority over her, and so His punishment was to subject her to man’s authority. This subjection finds its expression in scripture a few different ways. It’s most famous expression is Paul’s instruction to Timothy which reads:
1 Timothy 2:11-15 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.
The Fall of humanity disrupted the perfect complementary relationship between man and woman. Adam and Eve lived in perfect complement of each other prior to the Fall. The curse caused Eve to come under the dominion of her husband in ways she found undesirable. And such has been the plight of men and women ever since. If we didn’t live under the corruption of global sin, a woman’s subjection to her husband would not be perceived as a punishment — rather it would be understood as the correct nature of things. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love. If woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness. Such divine dynamic is uncommon in marriages today, and those minority who have it must work hard to maintain it. A woman who lords over her husband must understand she’s doing so in direct defiance to God Himself.
Remember how we discussed God’s mercy being visible within the context of His punishments if we only have the faith to see it? Once again this is true of Eve’s punishment. Scripture observes the truth that a mother who gives birth to a child quickly forgets all the pain she endured to do so. Such is the joy she feels when she holds her new baby. God’s punishment requires her to live in subjection, but God’s grace subjects her to her husband who loves her — not just any man who may hurt her. This is why God never placed enmity between the man and the woman, while He did in fact ordain enmity between the woman and the serpent. Subjection to a loving husband is not meant to ruin a woman. It’s meant to bring her to repentance, just as God’s chastisement of the man is meant to bring Him to repentance.
And that’s really the core of what’s important to remember when it comes to all suffering and grief. God’s grace can always be found in the midst of it. God never leaves you alone in it. Sometimes the pain is arbitrary, like childhood cancer, and sometimes the pain is the direct consequence of your own sin — like ruining your life with adultery. But in both cases we should endeavor to search out the grace of God wherever we can find it. When He chastises us, we should remember He does this because He loves us and He’s extending an opportunity for repentance along with it. Jesus Himself acknowledges how painful life in this world can be when He shouts from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s nothing to trivialize. But neither is the goodness and grace of God. He is bigger than your pain, not matter how big your pain feels.