Genesis 3:16, commentary and pictures

God's sentence on the woman greatly multiplies her sorrow in conception, makes childbearing painful, turns her desire to her husband, and places her in subjection under his rule. In creation she was made Adam's equal, but sin brought discord that could be preserved only by submission, so subjection was laid upon her as part of the curse because she was first in transgression. That sorrow and hardship came as a result of disobedience, for God made mankind for happiness and still wants people to rejoice in Him rather than live in continual worry. The sentence is part of the terrible retribution proving God is exacting toward disobedience, that the wages of sin is death, and that justice required the penalty to be paid. Yet the fallen pair were given another probation through the Son of God becoming man's substitute and surety, aiming to restore what sin marred and bring the obedient back to their Eden home.

Fall Setting and Sentence

The verse belongs to the fall, where Eve had been cautioned not to separate from her husband in the daily labor in the garden, because with him she would be in less danger from temptation than when alone. Absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side, and on perceiving she was alone she felt apprehension of danger. She dismissed her fears, deciding she had sufficient wisdom and strength to discern evil and to withstand it. She soon stood gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration upon the forbidden tree and its very beautiful fruit, questioning why God had withheld it. By this she gave the tempter, working unseen through the serpent as his medium, his opportunity to address her.

The transgression was listening to Satan’s misrepresentation of God and breaking His one prohibition, with no excuse for the disobedience. Eve was deceived and was intemperate in desire, wanting the forbidden fruit more than all the trees she could freely eat. She ate and led her husband to eat, and Adam followed her. The pleasurable feeling after eating the fruit did not make their choice right. The seduction from loyalty was worked so cautiously that the sin was not detected, yet by it they fell and became sinners, introducing sin and its curse and opening the floodgates of woe upon the world.

God’s sentence upon the woman greatly multiplies her sorrow and her conception. Childbearing is made sorrowful, with sorrow and pain in bearing children as her portion after sin. Her desire is turned to her husband. She is placed in subjection under his rule.

The sorrow connected with motherhood, placed alongside the toil and return to dust described in the following verses, came as the result of disobeying God’s requirements. Sorrow, care and anguish are not God’s order but came into the world when sin marred His purpose. He made mankind for happiness, perfectly happy at creation, delighting in the Garden of Eden as an emblem of heaven and of His love. There were beautiful fragrant flowers, fruit trees bearing precious treasures for man’s good, and birds caroling praise to God. He still wants men and women to rejoice in such sights and sounds and to be a joyful people reposing in Him, rather than to live in continual worry crowded together in cities.

Equality and Subjection Explained

At creation the woman was made the equal of Adam, with individual mind and action and no independent interests between them. Continued obedience in harmony with God's great law of love would have kept the pair in harmony with each other. Sin brought discord, so that their union could afterward be maintained and harmony preserved only by submission on the part of one or the other. Subjection to her husband was laid upon Eve as part of the curse because she was first in transgression, falling into temptation by separating from her companion contrary to divine direction and causing Adam to sin by her solicitation. Though growing out of the results of sin, that sentence would have proved a blessing if the fallen race had cherished the principles enjoined in the law. But man's abuse of the supremacy given him through arbitrary power has too often made woman's lot very bitter and grievous and her life a burden.

Eve had been perfectly happy by her husband's side in her Eden home, but was flattered with the hope of entering a higher sphere than that assigned her. In attempting to rise above her original position she fell far below it, and all who are unwilling to take up cheerfully their life duties in accordance with God's plan reach the same result. In efforts to reach positions for which they are not fitted many leave vacant the place where they might be a blessing, and in desire for a higher sphere many sacrifice true womanly dignity and nobility of character and leave undone the very work Heaven appointed them.

Sin Brings Certain Punishment

Because disobedience to God's command cost the first parents their right to Eden, they were expelled and lost beautiful Paradise, and that loss stands before every soul with the history of the fall as an example to avoid sin and abhor it as hateful, feeling that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least commandment. Genesis 3:1-24 shows that venturing to take the forbidden fruit brought bitter experience with awful consequences in fall and expulsion and loss of Eden, proving that being once in grace does not mean always remaining in grace. The verse belongs to the account of dire results that followed disobedience in Eden, and from that sin evil grew worse until the flood that left only Noah and his sons, and has steadily increased since.

That seemingly simple act opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, bringing guilt and sorrow and judgment with misery and despair upon the human race through loss of divine favor. It brought pain and suffering and poverty and sickness and disease and misery and death, with physical and mental and moral decline, marring and defiling nature until the brightness of God's presence departed and Eden was degraded. The evils have passed from parents to children and from generation to generation, aggravated by later violations of God's laws, growing worse until the flood and steadily increasing since, so that disobedience is a warning that sin leads to death. Even a very small sin brings corruption and ruin ending in eternal loss, and the account shows that disobeying God's command has serious consequences while obedience is the only safe course.

The misery following transgression was not cruelly caused by a merciful and good God. In one sense human beings are creatures of circumstance through unwillingness to submit to His requirements, with continual departure from His wise arrangements from that transgression to the present. Indulgence of appetite and sinful desires has brought misery and disease of every type, and much of what is seen can be traced directly to wrong habits bringing their sure result rather than to God arbitrarily inflicting suffering.

The verse declares part of the terrible retribution for breaking the command given in Eden as the rule of human conduct and basis of all right conduct, proving God is exacting toward disobedience and that mercy does not excuse continued sin. It teaches that the wages of sin is death, that God's retributive justice never fails, that He carries out declared punishment and requires strict regard for His commandments, with the same definite penalty and certain punishment shown when the law was proclaimed at Sinai. The Eden law could not be changed to pardon man and let him retain Eden, for justice required the penalty to be paid, and the Father did not put benevolence above justice to exalt the impenitent sinner and encourage transgression. It records one of the results of the first parents' transgression, showing the reward of obedience and the penalty of disobedience and proving all people including rulers and all in responsibility accountable to obey.

After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature. God permitted him to sow tares and work out his principles of evil while protecting from his wrath those who desire to work out the principles of heaven.

For nearly a thousand years Adam lived among men as a witness to the results of sin and to the necessity of strict adherence to the law, faithfully seeking to stem evil in obedience to the command to instruct posterity. He carefully treasured what was revealed and repeated it to children and children's children to the ninth generation, describing Paradise, repeating the fall, telling of those sufferings, and explaining the merciful provisions for salvation. Yet the sin bringing such woe met with little heed, and he was often met with bitter reproaches for it.

Redemption After the Fall

The first pair stood helpless under Satan's power and under sentence of death, with execution delayed, yet the Son given from heaven undertook to redeem humanity by His valuable sacrifice to pay the debt of transgression. He stepped in to pledge His own life, becoming man's substitute and surety, taking human transgressions and their just penalty upon Himself, laying aside royal robes and clothing divinity with humanity as a man of sorrows. That seemingly simple act of taking the forbidden fruit had brought bitter experience and awful consequences, with retribution following in fall and expulsion and loss of Eden and the opening of the floodgates of woe, proving God exacting toward disobedience and that mercy does not excuse continued sin. The fallen race can only be saved and elevated to keep God's law through the merits and blood of God's Son, whose sacrifice exalts the law and evidences its sacred character without abolishing it for unconditional pardon. This provision grants another trial and probation, with the blood as the sinner's only hope and refuge and life through faith and access to God now through Christ alone.

Christ entered the world and faced the ground and test where Adam fell, and in the wilderness passed over that ground and overcame temptation including appetite, redeeming Adam's failure and fall and disgrace and placing the family on vantage ground. Adam by disobeying God's express command lost divine favor and brought misery and despair upon the race, and his disobedience brought sin, sorrow, and death into the world. When Adam became a law to himself, discord and unhappiness came into his life and separation was made between him and his God, in contrast to Christ's life of perfect constant obedience that set an example all could follow. Christ came to give an example of obedience, and Christians must not transgress as Adam and Eve did but must be obedient to all requirements, overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments. Through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour it is made possible for them to overcome in their own behalf.

Redemption aims to restore what sin marred, to bring people back to the perfection in which they were created and to their Eden home, with Paradise and all lost through sin regained. Through obedience they are brought back to their Eden home and point others heavenward to it. Adam and Eve lost the right to their Eden home by disobedience, and choosing that same disobedience forfeits the right to the Eden restored, while obedience brings back to Eden.

That same transgression that lost Eden will cause loss of heaven, for sin is transgression of the law which is the transcript of Christ's character so that to disregard that law is to disregard Christ. Jesus came to save His people from transgression of the law by imparting His righteousness to those who obey. No one can be cleansed by the righteousness of the law or overcome in his own strength, but by faith Christ imputes His righteousness because He died and obeyed every requirement of that transgressed law, giving a saving knowledge of Him.

Scripture Witness and Warning

Genesis 3:16 outlines the fall and the consequences of the sin that opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. It holds grand sacred truth possessing amazing strength and beauty as far-reaching as eternity, giving the most important knowledge to be gained and belonging with the vital themes of Christianity revealed from Genesis to Revelation. It belongs to the inspired history of the race that begins with the first parents standing in Eden in holy innocency enjoying communion with God and sinless angels, then traces disobedience, impenitence, the introduction of sin and its results upon the race, and just retribution for sin. It belongs to the authentic history of the beginning of the world giving true knowledge of creation, the fall, the introduction of sin, the origin of the earth and the fall of the covering cherub, without which the mind is left to fables and conjectures, false theories, superstition and falsehood and enfeebling of intellect, but with which there is no need to be hampered by human conjectures and unreliable theories.

Genesis 3:16 belongs to the full and explicit account of the law given in Eden, the temptation and fall, and the punishment inflicted for disobedience, recording part of the penalty for breaking the divine command and showing the sad results of disobedience. That law given in Eden is the rule of human conduct and the basis of all right conduct, showing the reward of obedience and the penalty of disobedience and proving all people accountable to obey, including rulers of nations and all standing in positions of responsibility. The law is to be magnified and glorified before all as running like golden threads through the fabric of the gospel, with the blood of Christ as the sinner's only hope, and having and keeping the commandments is the test of love, with the human family to obey the light given about its binding claims and lift the cross in view of the whole world. The same definite penalty and certain punishment shown here was shown when the law was proclaimed at Sinai, teaching that the wages of sin is death, that retributive justice never fails, and that strict regard for the commandments is required.

The account is given as a warning against disobedience, recording part of the loss and injury that lost beautiful Eden and opened the floodgates of woe with death and all woe, showing the result of even one wrong act and standing as a beacon of warning at the byways leading from the path of life. Its result stands before every soul as an example that should lead to avoiding sin and abhorring it as hateful, feeling in view of the sufferings sin is sure to inflict that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of the commandments, while through the sacrifice of Christ alone fallen man has been granted another trial. The transgression brought sorrow and suffering upon the human family, and all have the privilege of learning from it that transgressing the law brings woe, so the light of the law must be made clearly known to protect the family from further disobedience. The fall is a great fact and pillar of the faith to be accepted with implicit confidence as the guide of life, and to cavil at it, spiritualize it and explain it away is infidelity and practical rejection of truth by those priding themselves on wisdom and independence.

Adam's experience stands as a warning against violating the express law by indulging appetite and passion, a violation that drove him from Eden and brought sin and unutterable woe and left the race far lower physically, mentally and morally, yet men repeat his disobedience while deploring his fall. People continue to disobey rather than learn from his example, adding a succession of falls beginning with Adam's fall, with growing consequences and increasing disobedience ever since. That apparently small transgression closed the gates of Paradise, and since then sin has been increasing in volume and prevalence and is still increasing, though divine benevolence has not been cut off and love and care still flow earthward. The reality of the fall is a foundational fact that many professing Christians reject in whole or in part.

The fall connects with abandoning God's order for marriage, for God gave Adam one wife establishing His arrangement for humanity, but men later took multiple wives and increased wickedness and unhappiness.

Obedient Life Today

The sentence upon the woman after the first parents listened to Satan's misrepresentation of God and broke His one prohibition with no excuse is a lesson for all mankind that God's Word is to be sacredly respected and His requirements implicitly obeyed. Obedience to all His requirements is the only safe course, for walking contrary to God makes Him walk contrary, and all His requirements are founded in infinite love and wisdom and must be obeyed at whatever cost, even by retracting a rash promise contrary to Scripture. Refusing light after hearing truth repeats that Eden disobedience, bargains with Satan, sells the soul cheaply, violates conscience, and leaves conscience impure and unreliable.

The floodgates of woe opened by that violation stand before every soul as an example that even a very small sin brings corruption and ruin, so no place is to be given to the devil because even a small transgression against light and knowledge debases the soul. God's requirements must be kept exactly, with no liberality or carelessness in little matters, for Satan bewitches the mind to make light of the warning, to talk of not being so particular, and to keep defects of character instead of reforming. That bewitching leads to wider deviation from Christ's perfect example, which must be studied prayerfully and made the criterion and standard. In view of the sufferings sin is sure to inflict, sin is to be avoided and abhorred as a hateful thing, and it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least commandment.

Eating what God had forbidden lost the right to Paradise, and getting ready for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control. Indulged appetite and desire govern moral tendencies and spiritual life, with indulging depraved appetite weakening the power to resist evil and enabling Satan to fasten evil habits upon man and ensnare him in his devices. Errors in preparation of food and indulged inclination, habit, delicate unhealthful cooking, and unhealthful dress still weaken physical, mental, and moral efficiency, crowd out meditation, searching the Scriptures, and prayer, lessen sincere piety and religious fervor, and make it impossible to overcome temptation. Therefore decided reform is required in every family and careful guarding of bodily health to protect spiritual life. Christians must not transgress as Adam and Eve did but must be obedient to all requirements, overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, so that through obedience they are brought back to their Eden home and point others heavenward to it.

The sorrow connected with motherhood came as the result of disobeying God's requirements, part of the floodgates of disappointment, sorrow, and suffering opened upon the world, and mothers are to keep this fact before the tender minds of their children while training them to be obedient to all the statutes and commandments of the Lord. Having and keeping God's commandments is the test of love, and the whole human family must obey the light given about the binding claims of God's law and lift the cross in view of the whole world.