Genesis 3:16

Then Yahweh said to the woman, “You will have great pain when you give birth to children; you will suffer great pain as your children are being born [DOU]. You will greatly desire your husband to show affection for you, but he will rule over you.”

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

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.

In Context

15And I will cause you and the woman to act in a hostile way toward each other, and I will cause your brood and her descendants to act hostilely toward each other. You will strike at the heel of one descendant of hers, but he will strike your head.”

17Then Yahweh said to the man, “You heeded what your wife said, and you ate some of the fruit of the tree concerning which I commanded you saying, ‘Do not eat it.’ So I will make it difficult to grow things in the ground because of what you did. You will have to work hard as long as you live to produce things from the ground to eat.

Read all of Genesis 3

Cross References

Genesis 4:7If you had done what was right (OR, if you do what is right) [RHQ], I would accept your offering. But if you do not do what is right, your desire to sin is ready to attack you like a wild animal that [PRS] crouches outside the doorway, ready to spring on its victim [MET]. Your desire to sin wants to control you, but you must ◄control/not obey► it.”

Numbers 30:7if her husband hears about what she promised to do, and he does not object, she must do what she promised [DOU].

1 Samuel 4:19The wife/widow of Eli’s son Phinehas was pregnant, and it was almost time for her to give birth to her baby. When she heard that God’s sacred chest had been captured and that her husband and her father-in-law were dead, her labor pains suddenly began. She quickly gave birth to a boy.

Esther 1:20Then, when everyone in your empire hears what you have commanded, all the women, including those who are important and those who are not important, will respect and obey their husbands.”

Isaiah 13:8All of you will be terrified. You will have [PRS] severe pains like [SIM] a woman has when she is giving birth to a baby. You will look at each other helplessly, and it will show on your faces that you feel horror.

Isaiah 26:17Like pregnant women writhe and cry out when they are giving birth, we suffered very much, too.

Matthew Henry on Genesis 3:15-16

Sentence Passed on the Serpent; Intimation of Messiah. ( b. c. 4004.) 14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. The prisoners being found guilty by their own confession, besides the personal… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 3:16