I Will Multiply Your Sorrow - Genesis 3:16

Question

“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children"

Is conception tied to sorrow or is conception merely multiplied? Example:

• I will greatly multiply your sorrow [but]

• I will multiply your conception

• In pain you shall bring forth children

Would the multiplication of conception be redemptive to the sorrow? Because conception and bringing forth children are two separate acts. One is pregnancy; one is full-term labor.

John 16:21-22 A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So, the multiplication of children would be a joyful thing, even if labor is awful.

See, I'm just not convinced at the traditional idea that Eve's punishment was painful labor, and that without sin there would be no labor pains at all. I don't see how a woman can not have labor pains because, well. . .biology. A lot of contractions and dilations are going on to give birth to an 8 or 9lb baby. I also believe the fall was necessary or at least foreseen, and so no matter what, childbirth would have been painful, regardless of Eve being deceived and falling into transgression.

God states "I" claiming He will do a specific thing: "I will multiply your sorrow"; "I will multiple your conception"; but I does not seem to be connected to painful labor: this reads more like a statement. It doesn't read, "I will give you painful labor" it reads more like a heads up, childbirth is going to hurt. Additionally, though I didn't quote it I is not connected with man ruling over woman: this also reads like a statement. Seems to me that painful childbirth and the male-female hierarchy were already formerly established and are natural law, not punishments.

Is the only real punishment (or consequence) here the fact that Eve now has multiplied sorrow?

John 16:22 Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.

Jesus Christ is the 2nd Adam and the Church is, by implication therefore, the 2nd Eve. Before Christ's crucifixion He tells His disciples (the first-fruits of the church) that they have sorrow, and why, because Christ was departing the world to go to the Father.

Likewise we see, not so much God departing Eve, but Eve departing God and being cast from Eden. A literary-poetic juxtaposition, so to speak. Either way, Eve was without God in the world, and the Church is waiting for Christ to return and because He is not in the world and we are not Eden, we have sorrow.

So if God actively multiplied sorrow, the only thing God actively did in Genesis 3 was cast them from Eden and cut them off from God. You now have sorrow, BUT I will see you again

God further then multiples Eve's conception: her ability to bear children and it is by Woman that Christ would come. Eve was cast from Eden, but through childbearing and the promise of a savior, God is saying, You will see me again.

So again I ask, is the only punishment the multiplication of sorrow by being in the world not by conception; childbirth; or martial hierarchy, just simply, not being in Eden.

Answer 1

Biologically, the intensity of labor pain can be explained by the sensitivity of nerve receptors. Surely God is capable to make this more severe. However, since Eve had not experienced labor before God's pronouncement in Genesis 3:16, I tend to agree with the OP that this is more a statement of fact rather than a punishment. This perspective aligns with the belief that the fall of Adam and Eve was predetermined.

When comparing to the verdicts given to the serpent, Adam and Eve, it's noteworthy that only the serpent was explicitly cursed (Genesis 3:14). Eve received the pronouncement of "painful labor" (Genesis 3:16), and Adam was told of "painful toil" (Genesis 3:17). Both of these conditions seem to reflect the natural hardships of earthly existence, consequentially from their expulsion from Eden.

Sorrow is a different matter. It is a mental response to the perception of events. In John 16:21-22, Jesus uses a metaphor, comparing the timing of His crucifixion as time for labor. His sacrifice will give birth to His Church, and usher in the arrival of the Holy Spirit, who will guide believers in truth, as prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-33. Thus, the sorrow resulting from Jesus' crucifixion will bring forth His New Covenant, and believers will rejoice in their hearts, knowing that God's promises are fulfilled.

Reflection on today, we find that pain can often be controlled by medical means, but sorrow is not as easily managed. Rather than sorrow arising from pain, it is often pain that stems from sorrow. This pain can be felt for others, as expressed by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, or it can come from personal repentance. In such moments, two scripture passages can provide comfort and relief.

Psalm 34:18 NIV

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 51:17 NIV

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

Answer 2

The curse of sin, as meted out in Gen 3 had several components:

SERPENT (V14, 15):

• cursed above all livestock (V14)
• it would crawl on its belly
• it would eat dust
• God would put enmity between the woman and the serpent
• The seed of the woman (Messiah) would ultimately crush the serpent's head (ie, kill the serpent)

WOMAN: (V16):

• increase pain in childbirth (suggesting that childbirth would not have been painful before the fall)
• "husband of desire" (this clause is tricky to translate). Most versions render it: "Your desire will be for your husband" but it could also be translated: "you will desire to control your husband" (See BLB notes). In any case, the point appears to be the marriage relationship would be greatly disrupted.
• the husband will rule over the woman (this is perhaps the greatest curse) and is largely overcome in the ideal Christian marriage as set out in Eph 5, but that is another question

MAN (V17-19):

• Ground cursed making farming/food production far more laborious
• thorns and thistles (ie, abundance of weeds) will occur
• great effort and sweat will be required of agriculture
• man will die and turn back to dust

All these curses are summarized in what follows - banishment from the garden of Eden and access to the tree of life (to be restored in the new earth, Rev 22:14).

CONCLUSION

So, what is the source of the curse and multiplied sorrows of woman?

According to the text of Gen 3, God was the source of these sorrows which occurred because of the sin which is a ruptured relationship with God. God achieved this by unstated means but presumably a combination of a lack of access to the tree of life and altered biology (this is a guess because we are not told).

Answer 3

My answer probably will not give much hope, but I will tie it up to the text as much as I can.

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First of all, Let's (try to) narrow down meanings of challenging words given here: multiply, sorrow, conception, pain, childbirth.

Seems like the questioned verse is quoted from NKJV, here it is, Genesis 3:16:

To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

And that's how it was translated by others:

[KJV] - Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

[YLT] - Unto the woman He said, 'Multiplying I multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow dost thou bear children, and toward thy husband is thy desire, and he doth rule over thee.'

[ESV] - To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

While there are differences in pain/sorrow choices, others, except ESV, agree on 'conception' and 'childbirth'. And about 'multiple' will be said later.

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Now, let's take a look at the original text.

• to multiply is H7235 — rawbaw
• first pain/sorrow is H6093 — itsawbone
• conception is H2032 — hayrone
• second pain/sorrow is H6089 — ehtseb
• to bear children is H3205 and H1121 — yawlad banim

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"to bear children"

In present context, there is nothing special about meaning of word H3025 (yawlad), it is widely used exactly in a 'childbirth' sense, often together with H1121.

Only detail to note is that 'childbirth' can imply bearing in a womb, or can mean only actual day of child birth. YLT translation highlights that. But in all cases it means birth completion.

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"conception"

That word for 'conception' is used only three times, in: Genesis 3:16, Ruth 4:13, Hosea 9:11. Among these, Hosea 9:11 is a great example for meaning clarification:

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth(H3205), and from the womb(H990), and from the conception(H2032).

Here we can clearly see that main meaning of that Hebrew word is not 'pregnancy' and not 'labor of bringing child forth'. And occasionally, that is true for English too. Now, if conception is not pregnancy or birth completion, then what is it, in essence?

Oxford English Dictionary says, that 'to conceive' means:

Nearly all the senses found in Fr. and Eng. were already developed in Latin, where the primary notion was approximately 'to take effectively, take to oneself, take in and hold'.

That is exactly how Eve acted back on serpent tempting her in Eden, isn't it?

Genesis 3:6, YLT:

And the woman seeth that the tree is good for food, and that it is pleasant to the eyes, and the tree is desirable to make one wise, and she taketh of its fruit and eateth, and giveth also to her husband with her, and he doth eat;

To give something, you have to take and hold it first. That said, Eve actually conceived from the serpent, and when it came to God's reaction on that, she already had got a conception. And so had Adam.

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"to multiply"

Understanding of that word usage is, from my opinion, crucial here. The struggle arises from the fact that in Hebrew text this verb, having one root, appears two times, and only in YLT translation we see that explicitly, while others took it as adverb, and what important, they took other roots to translate it.

Genesis 3:16, YLT — Unto the woman He said, 'Multiplying(H7235) I multiply(H7235) thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow dost thou bear children, and toward thy husband is thy desire, and he doth rule over thee.'

King James Version actually at least once use the same translation as YLT of the same Hebrew construction as we have in Genesis 3:16. Here it is:

Genesis 22:17, KJV — That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

Now, since we are interested in examining multiplication of sorrow of human, let's see first how multiplication appears initially. First time human appears in Genesis 1:27 and right after that, in the next verse, appears ability to multiply, in relation to human:

27: And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.

28: And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.'

In light of all creation, it does not seem wrong to say that God is ultimate multiplier, who even created those that are able to multiply - animals and humans. And as soon as we agree that 'human' was the final creation of God, which was made of God's image and therefore was made able to multiply ultimately, we can also say that human is the ultimate way of God to multiply.

In taking as the fact that 'human' is the ultimate way of God to multiply, together with Eve that took the conception from the serpent, with the preceding strict command to not do that, and with addition from Genesis 2:20 that Adam knew serpent's name (i.e. 'essence' in old days) so he could actually listen what God said, but he didn't, — it seems like fall could not be necessary. If he did, he could got to know Eve's name in a good way, but we don't know about that good way, in "light" of the fall.

Conception from the serpent was already there, when sorrow came up; because that kind of conception was not allowed by any means, i.e violating that restriction was against multiplication of living.

Implication of these things is that there was no sorrow before the fall – biological, emotional, or any other. There was no pain, or labor of bringing forth; it does not matter that it's hard to imagine today, — these things just in the text (at least in how I read it).

And the belief that “the fall was necessary or at least foreseen, and so no matter what, childbirth would have been painful, regardless of Eve being deceived and falling into transgression” — contradicts the text. This view basically means that God Himself has a need to fall (since humans is made in His image), and that makes the serpent higher than God, while the serpent clearly a creation.

There is no place in the Bible that says about the serpent as one that precedes God. There is the opposite.

Psalm 16:4, YLT:

Multiplied are their griefs, Who have hastened backward; I pour not out their libations of blood, Nor do I take up their names on my lips [i.e. I try to not keep their essence in my mind, to make my mind as clear as the God's image is].

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"pain" and "sorrow"

All words in a range from H6087 to H6094 are of the same root and slightly differ in meaning. Here are shortly presented possible meanings of each, they are taken from Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon. (my notes are in parentheses)

• H6087: 1. verb hurt, pain, grieve; 2. verb shape, fashion.
• H6088: 1. verb pained, grieved (passive).
• H6089: 1. noun pain, hurt, toil; 2. noun vessel (i.e. product of labor, idol).
• H6090: 1. noun pain; 2. noun idol.
• H6091: 1. noun idol (image).
• H6092: 1. noun toiler, sufferer.
• H6093: 1. noun pain, toil;
• H6094: 1. noun hurt, injury, pain.

In Genesis 3:16 first one is H6093 - 'pain, toil' and the second is H6089 - 'pain, hurt, toil, vessel'.

The second one is used in its second meaning in Jeremiah 22:28, YLT:

A grief -- a despised broken thing(H6089) -- is this man Coniah? A vessel in which there is no pleasure? Wherefore have they been cast up and down, He and his seed, Yea, they were cast on to a land that they knew not?

In YLT it is translated even as a thing, in KJV as an idol, because there is also common word for 'vessel' in that verse, it is H3627 – kelee.

But in "light" of Eve's conception from the serpent, taking that verse into account leads to read Genesis 3:16 as meaning that she will bring forth children that are not of God, and all three readings feel valid:

• (1) 'in pain [of your body and in emotional sorrow of your conception] you shall bring forth children'
• (2) 'in [your] idol [, the serpent,] you shall bring forth children'
• (3) 'in [physical] vessel you shall bring forth children'

First can be partly confirmed by today's parenthood obviousness; the second reading is confirmed by her first child - Cain, who is an image of the serpent, who had gone against God; third is confirmed by the fact that she (and he) took a conception from a creation of not God's image, the serpent. Full confirmation of first comes after reading of Cain had acted as he had acted.

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Finally, answer

I picked the last question — “So again I ask, is the only punishment the multiplication of sorrow by being in the world not by conception; childbirth; or martial hierarchy, just simply, not being in Eden”.

Multiplication of sorrow:
— no, is not just "being in the world", as you call it,
— yes, is caused by taking conception from the serpent,
— consequentially in part by childbirth,
— consequentially in part by "martial hierarchy", as you call it.

As I understand from the text, "not being in Eden" is a gift of God's grace to the human being, because God does not make bad things, the serpent is counted too; it just occurred to be too much of a challenge for those, who were created in God's image, though not being God Himself; if not Eve, but Adam was definitely equipped to not fall. He just decided to not listen God in that case, and as a result he lost the Spirit of God that was given to him.

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P.S.
I did not mention New Testament here at all intentionally, because Jesus restores things, but I wanted to show what things he actually restores, contextually but in details.

P.S.S
I want to add, that view "Jesus Christ is the 2nd Adam and the Church is, by implication therefore, the 2nd Eve" contradicts the Scripture.
Jesus can't be considered as 2nd Adam, because 1st Adam was a creation, while Jesus is the creator. Following that specific analogy, right way to say would be that Church created by Jesus is "the 2nd Adam", while Jesus is simply God.
There are plenty of verses that call Israel as a woman or a bride, but Christian Church in no way can be analogously thought of as of Eve, because there is no Eve nor Adam after Jesus Christ came for the first time, there are only 'human' how it was initially created before the separation of Eve from Adam. See Galatians 3:23-28, these fragments especially:

• But before faith came, we were kept under the law [including subordination law from Genesis]..
• ..wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ..
• ..but after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster [i.e in present context, after faith came we know that subordination is reasonable, know why, and know that it is not forced, everyone was and is free to die]..
• ..there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

If you really feel the need to complete such analogy, it seems reasonable to call Gentiles that became part of Christian Church as Eve, and Jews that became part of Christian Church as Adam, because Adam knew and supposed to keep the law in the same way as jews knew and supposed to keep, while gentiles did not knew the law.
To be honest, I don't find this analogy to be great, because it pushes to think of man-woman behavior simplistically, and consequentially even of male-female attributes, – physical, functional, emotional, – none of which are appropriate at all in the context which matter is decisions and consequences.