Some Bible teachers understand the last two clauses of Gen 3:16 as defining how families should operate.
Gen 3:16 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.
According to this position, the woman is to be emotionally dependent on her husband, submissively desiring him. He is to rule over her and his home like a little king in his castle. The verse is sometimes viewed as the basis for NT passages on the different roles of the husband and the wife (Eph 5:22-33; Col 3:18-19; and 1 Pet 3:1-7).
In fact, Gen 3:16 is not instruction on how families are to operate, but a description of how fallen people live in vicious tension. In the gospels, the Lord Jesus actually forbids this pattern of life.
After the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, God curses the serpent, the woman, and the man. Gen 3:16 is God’s curse on the woman. Though modern teachers sometimes cite it as the basis for the different roles of men and women in the New Testament (NT), the NT writers never cite it. Instead, they always go back to God’s vision for the family before the fall:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, [Gen 1:27] 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? [Gen 2:24] 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Let’s look more closely at the vocabulary of Gen 3:16, how it is used in the OT, and what the NT says about it. Then we can consider the very different pattern that the NT sets for the relation of husbands and wives.
The Vocabulary of Gen 3:16 in the OT
The key verbs in Gen 3:16 are the woman’s activity of “desire,” and the man’s activity of “rule.” Let’s see how these are used elsewhere in the OT.
The Woman’s Desire
The noun describing the woman’s desire for her husband (תשׁוקה teshuqah, Strong’s number H8669) appears only three times in the Hebrew Bible. In Gen 3:16, it describes a woman’s desire toward a man. In Song of Solomon 7:10, it describes a man’s desire toward a woman:
Song 7:10 I am my beloved’s, and his desire teshuqah is toward me.
Since the word can describe both the man’s desire for the woman and the woman’s desire for the man, it would be a mistake in Gen 3:16 to understand it of a gender-specific role that is part of the submission that wives owe their husbands.
The third instance is in Genesis 4, where the Lord is encouraging Cain after rejecting his sacrifice:
Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire teshuqah, and thou shalt rule over him.
Genesis 4 pictures sin as a wild beast, crouching at Cain’s door. The desire in 4:7 is sin’s hunger to dominate and devour him. The common semantic theme in Gen 3:16, 4:7, and Song 7:10 is not submission or dependence, but the willful desire of one party to possess and control the other.
Interestingly, Gen 4:7 repeats not only teshuqah from 3:16, but also the prediction that one party will rule (משׁל mashal H4910) over the other, reinforcing the need to interpret these words in the same way in both verses.
The Man’s Rule
The verb in Gen 3:16 and 4:7 that is translated “rule” (mashal ) describes a king’s control over his territory, such as Sihon king of the Amorites (Josh 12:2), or the Philistines over Israel before the monarchy (Judg 14:4), or Solomon over Israel (1 Ki 4:21). The children of Israel tried to draft Gideon to rule, but he felt this role belonged to God alone:
Judg. 8:22 Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule mashal thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. 23 And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you.
Gen 3:16 predicts that husbands will not share Gideon’s wise insight.
What the NT says about Ruling
When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the translators translated mashal mostly with ἄρχω archō G757 (to begin, to rule) or κυριεύω kurieuō G2961 (to be a lord or kurios). Kurieuō is the word they chose in Gen 3:16, so when the Greek-speaking people to whom Paul and Peter wrote read Gen 3:16, they saw kurieuō. Kurieuō appears in the NT in three contexts.
First, it describes the authority of earthly kings:
Luke 22:25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship (kurieuō) over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. 26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
In this verse, our Lord forbids believers (including husbands) to exercise the kind of rule in Gen 3:16 over each other.
Second, it describes the cruel rule of death (Rom 6:9), sin (Rom 6:14), or the law (Rom 7:1).
Third, it describes the coming rule of the Lord Jesus:
Rom. 14:9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord [rule over]both of the dead and living.
1Tim. 6:15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords [ptc those who have dominion];
Recall Gideon’s protest to those who wanted to make him king. Ruling (Hebrew mashal, Greek kurieuō) is God’s right, and it is wrong for anybody else to exercise it, including a husband over a wife.
The translation archō used in Gen 4:7 is mostly used in the NT in its primitive sense of starting something (e.g., Matt 4:17 “from that time Jesus began to preach …”). I’ve been able to find only two instances where it has the sense “rule” that we find in the OT. One is Mark’s account of the Lord’s instructions we saw in Luke 22:
Mark 10:42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto [served], but to minister [serve], and to give his life a ransom for many.
Here, as in Luke, the Lord forbids his followers to imitate the kind of rule exercised by secular kings.
Rom. 15:12 And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he [the Messiah] that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.
Like kurieuō in Rom 14:9 and 1 Tim 6:15, this verse reserves this kind of rule to the Lord Jesus.
The NT does talk about a man “ruling” his own house well (1 Tim 3:4, 12), but this Greek word (προΐστημι prohistēmi G4291) never translates mashal in the OT. It originally marked someone who represented a group by standing at their head, and often describes church leaders (Rom 12:8; 1 Thes 5:12; 1Tim 5:17). We might best translate it “be prominent.” Husbands and church leaders must be examples that are worthy for others to follow. The Lord Jesus forbids them to rule as earthly kings do, or as the Lord Jesus will in his coming glory.
The NT Roles for Husbands and Wives
When the NT tells wives to submit, what behavior does it require from the husband, who receives this submission?
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. … 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Col 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
1Pe 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; … 7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
These passages say nothing about the husband’s authority to rule. They emphasize his Christ-like love and care for his wife.
Husbands should imitate the love of Christ for believers in their love for their wives. For example, in our relation to the Lord, we are encouraged,
1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
A Christ-like husband will never tell a complaining wife, “I’ve got enough problems of my own. You’re supposed to take care of that.” Instead, he will encourage his wife not to worry about difficulties, but to bring them to him. He should make it his objective to deliver her from any occasion for worry. If her problems are beyond his ability to solve, he will bring them to the Lord on her behalf.
Again, we read concerning the Lord,
1Pe 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
A Christ-like husband will not berate his wife over her failings, but will shoulder them himself, recalling how our Savior has carried the burden of our sins.
Or again, recall our Lord’s prohibition of ruling (in the sense of Gen 3:16 and 4:7) among believers, in Mark 10, which ends with his own example:
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto [served], but to minister [serve], and to give his life a ransom for many.
A Christ-like husband will not expect his wife to serve him, but will constantly be looking for ways to serve her.
The wife submits to her husband. The husband loves and serves her. There is not a word of his giving orders and her dutifully carrying them out. Instead, he looks for opportunities to serve her, following the example of his Lord, who came “not to be served, but to serve” (Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45). What a contrast this is from the battle of the sexes that results from the curse of Gen 3:16.
Conclusion
Gen 3:16 envisions two people striving for control of the family, the woman like a cunning beast trying to dominate her husband, the husband seeking to command her as a king over his court. This pattern is the result of the fall, and our Lord forbids such rule among his people. He instructs those in positions of leadership to exercise that leadership by serving and being an example, not by issuing commands.
Interestingly, though the Scriptures describe the wife as subject to the husband, they recognize this as part of a mutual subjection of them to one another.1 Just before his instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5, Paul writes,
Eph 5:21 Submitting hupotassō yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
The NT pattern for Christian marriage is not Gen 3:16, which it never quotes. It is Gen 2:24, two people who together form one flesh to serve God in mutual submission to him and to each other.
- This same mutuality of submission characterizes church leadership. See the fuller discussion in https://www.cyber-chapel.org/sermons/genesis/notes/Gen_3_16_full.pdf ↩︎
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