Discovery BoxGenesis 3:16 
Context3:16 To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase 1 your labor pains; 2
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband, 3
but he will dominate 4 you.”
Genesis 16:2
Context16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Since 5 the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with 6 my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” 7 Abram did what 8 Sarai told him.
Genesis 21:7
Context21:7 She went on to say, 9 “Who would 10 have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!”
Genesis 21:23
Context21:23 Now swear to me right here in God’s name 11 that you will not deceive me, my children, or my descendants. 12 Show me, and the land 13 where you are staying, 14 the same loyalty 15 that I have shown you.” 16
Genesis 25:22
Context25:22 But the children struggled 17 inside her, and she said, “If it is going to be like this, I’m not so sure I want to be pregnant!” 18 So she asked the Lord, 19
Genesis 29:35
Context29:35 She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” That is why she named him Judah. 20 Then she stopped having children.
Genesis 30:26
Context30:26 Let me take my wives and my children whom I have acquired by working for you. 21 Then I’ll depart, 22 because you know how hard I’ve worked for you.” 23
Genesis 32:11
Context32:11 Rescue me, 24 I pray, from the hand 25 of my brother Esau, 26 for I am afraid he will come 27 and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. 28
Genesis 33:14
Context33:14 Let my lord go on ahead of his servant. I will travel more slowly, at the pace of the herds and the children, 29 until I come to my lord at Seir.”
Genesis 43:14
Context43:14 May the sovereign God 30 grant you mercy before the man so that he may release 31 your other brother 32 and Benjamin! As for me, if I lose my children I lose them.” 33
Genesis 46:5
Context46:5 Then Jacob started out 34 from Beer Sheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little children, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent along to transport him.
Genesis 47:24
Context47:24 When you gather in the crop, 35 give 36 one-fifth of it to Pharaoh, and the rest 37 will be yours for seed for the fields and for you to eat, including those in your households and your little children.”
Genesis 50:8
Context50:8 all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. But they left their little children and their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.
Genesis 50:23
Context50:23 Joseph saw the descendants of Ephraim to the third generation. 38 He also saw the children of Makir the son of Manasseh; they were given special inheritance rights by Joseph. 39
1 tn The imperfect verb form is emphasized and intensified by the infinitive absolute from the same verb.
2 tn Heb “your pain and your conception,” suggesting to some interpreters that having a lot of children was a result of the judgment (probably to make up for the loss through death). But the next clause shows that the pain is associated with conception and childbirth. The two words form a hendiadys (where two words are joined to express one idea, like “good and angry” in English), the second explaining the first. “Conception,” if the correct meaning of the noun, must be figurative here since there is no pain in conception; it is a synecdoche, representing the entire process of childbirth and child rearing from the very start. However, recent etymological research suggests the noun is derived from a root הרר (hrr), not הרה (hrh), and means “trembling, pain” (see D. Tsumura, “A Note on הרוֹן (Gen 3,16),” Bib 75 [1994]: 398-400). In this case “pain and trembling” refers to the physical effects of childbirth. The word עִצְּבוֹן (’itsÿvon, “pain”), an abstract noun related to the verb (עָצַב, ’atsav), includes more than physical pain. It is emotional distress as well as physical pain. The same word is used in v. 17 for the man’s painful toil in the field.
3 tn Heb “and toward your husband [will be] your desire.” The nominal sentence does not have a verb; a future verb must be supplied, because the focus of the oracle is on the future struggle. The precise meaning of the noun תְּשׁוּקָה (tÿshuqah, “desire”) is debated. Many interpreters conclude that it refers to sexual desire here, because the subject of the passage is the relationship between a wife and her husband, and because the word is used in a romantic sense in Song 7:11 HT (7:10 ET). However, this interpretation makes little sense in Gen 3:16. First, it does not fit well with the assertion “he will dominate you.” Second, it implies that sexual desire was not part of the original creation, even though the man and the woman were told to multiply. And third, it ignores the usage of the word in Gen 4:7 where it refers to sin’s desire to control and dominate Cain. (Even in Song of Songs it carries the basic idea of “control,” for it describes the young man’s desire to “have his way sexually” with the young woman.) In Gen 3:16 the
4 tn The Hebrew verb מָשַׁל (mashal) means “to rule over,” but in a way that emphasizes powerful control, domination, or mastery. This also is part of the baser human nature. The translation assumes the imperfect verb form has an objective/indicative sense here. Another option is to understand it as having a modal, desiderative nuance, “but he will want to dominate you.” In this case, the
sn This passage is a judgment oracle. It announces that conflict between man and woman will become the norm in human society. It does not depict the NT ideal, where the husband sacrificially loves his wife, as Christ loved the church, and where the wife recognizes the husband’s loving leadership in the family and voluntarily submits to it. Sin produces a conflict or power struggle between the man and the woman, but in Christ man and woman call a truce and live harmoniously (Eph 5:18-32).
5 tn Heb “look.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) introduces the foundational clause for the imperative to follow.
6 tn Heb “enter to.” The expression is a euphemism for sexual relations (also in v. 4).
sn The Hebrew expression translated have sexual relations with does not convey the intimacy of other expressions, such as “so and so knew his wife.” Sarai simply sees this as the social custom of having a child through a surrogate. For further discussion see C. F. Fensham, “The Son of a Handmaid in Northwest Semitic,” VT 19 (1969): 312-21.
7 tn Heb “perhaps I will be built from her.” Sarai hopes to have a family established through this surrogate mother.
8 tn Heb “listened to the voice of,” which is an idiom meaning “obeyed.”
sn Abram did what Sarai told him. This expression was first used in Gen 3:17 of Adam’s obeying his wife. In both cases the text highlights weak faith and how it jeopardized the plan of God.
9 tn Heb “said.”
10 tn The perfect form of the verb is used here to describe a hypothetical situation.
11 tn Heb “And now swear to me by God here.”
12 tn Heb “my offspring and my descendants.”
13 tn The word “land” refers by metonymy to the people in the land.
14 tn The Hebrew verb means “to stay, to live, to sojourn” as a temporary resident without ownership rights.
15 tn Or “kindness.”
16 tn Heb “According to the loyalty which I have done with you, do with me and with the land in which you are staying.”
17 tn The Hebrew word used here suggests a violent struggle that was out of the ordinary.
18 tn Heb “If [it is] so, why [am] I this [way]?” Rebekah wanted to know what was happening to her, but the question itself reflects a growing despair over the struggle of the unborn children.
19 sn Asked the
20 sn The name Judah (יְהוּדָה, yÿhudah) means “he will be praised” and reflects the sentiment Leah expresses in the statement recorded earlier in the verse. For further discussion see W. F. Albright, “The Names ‘Israel’ and ‘Judah’ with an Excursus on the Etymology of Todah and Torah,” JBL 46 (1927): 151-85; and A. R. Millard, “The Meaning of the Name Judah,” ZAW 86 (1974): 216-18.
21 tn Heb “give my wives and my children, for whom I have served you.” In one sense Laban had already “given” Jacob his two daughters as wives (Gen 29:21, 28). Here Jacob was asking for permission to take his own family along with him on the journey back to Canaan.
22 tn Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.
23 tn Heb “for you, you know my service [with] which I have served you.”
24 tn The imperative has the force of a prayer here, not a command.
25 tn The “hand” here is a metonymy for “power.”
26 tn Heb “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”
27 tn Heb “for I am afraid of him, lest he come.”
28 sn Heb “me, [the] mother upon [the] sons.” The first person pronoun “me” probably means here “me and mine,” as the following clause suggests.
29 tn Heb “and I, I will move along according to my leisure at the foot of the property which is before me and at the foot of the children.”
30 tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.
31 tn Heb “release to you.” After the jussive this perfect verbal form with prefixed vav (ו) probably indicates logical consequence, as well as temporal sequence.
32 sn Several Jewish commentators suggest that the expression your other brother refers to Joseph. This would mean that Jacob prophesied unwittingly. However, it is much more likely that Simeon is the referent of the phrase “your other brother” (see Gen 42:24).
33 tn Heb “if I am bereaved I am bereaved.” With this fatalistic sounding statement Jacob resolves himself to the possibility of losing both Benjamin and Simeon.
34 tn Heb “arose.”
35 tn The words “the crop” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
36 tn The perfect form with the vav (ו) consecutive is equivalent to an imperfect of instruction here.
37 tn Heb “four parts.”
38 tn Heb “saw Ephraim, the children of the third.”
39 tn Heb “they were born on the knees of Joseph.” This expression implies their adoption by Joseph, which meant that they received an inheritance from him.
