Into the Weeds: Understanding the Hebrew of Genesis 3:16a

How should we translate the first two lines of Genesis 3:16?

The KJV, ILB, NKJV, and RSV read something like this:

line 1: I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
line 2: in sorrow you will bring forth children.

Other (generally newer) translations (NIV, ESV, JPS, NASB) read something like this:

line 1: I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth;
line 2: in pain you will bring forth children.

The question for translators is really how to interpret the Hebrew conjunction ve- ("and") in the phrase itsbonek veheronek (line 1: "thy sorrow and thy conception" KJV). Perhaps the translators of newer versions have been influenced by Keil and Delitzsch, who in their commentary on the Hebrew of this verse say:

As the increase of conceptions, regarded as the fulfillment of the blessing to
'be fruitful and multiply' (1:28) could be no punishment, [heronek] must be
understood as in apposition to ... thy sorrow (i.e., the sorrows peculiar to a
woman's life), and indeed (or more especially) thy pregnancy (i.e., the
sorrows attendant upon that condition).

In other words, ignore the ve-! Many translators think the two nouns in our phrase are a hendiadys (two coordinate terms joined by a conjunction to express what in English would be expressed by a adjective and a noun). Carol Meyers discusses at length whether this phrase is a hendiadys in Discovering Eve, pages 100-109, and concludes that it is not. Nor, she points out, did the translators of the Septuagint.

The word heron also more properly refers to conception than to childbearing or childbirth. It means "to become pregnant," that is, "to conceive." As Carol Meyers says, it is "more associated with the initiation of pregnancy than with the duration or conclusion.... It does not refer to the sexual act itself but indicates the physiological condition that was the desired result of intercourse in Israelite society" (Discovering Eve, 102). We associate pain with labor, but not with conception. Maybe that also influenced translators!

All translators are also interpreters. Here, I think we miss connections if we ignore the ve- (pun intended!). Genesis 3:16-19 is full of parallels evident in the Hebrew that we miss in English translation. (We'll get into those weeds another time.) The curse on the woman of increased conception connects to the curse on the ground of bringing forth weeds and thorns. But modern translations don't let us see that both the woman and the ground will experience changed fertility as a result of the fall.

The blessing of birth control

When pastor Kevin DeYoung asks Christians to give each other the benefit of the doubt and love one another regardless of the size of our families, he appeals to 1 Corinthians 13 love. Let’s be sensitive to one another’s feelings, he says, and admit that we don’t know the situations of other families well enough to judge their choices.

Good advice—not followed by some of his blog readers. Not too far down in the comments to his post the flame throwing starts. One side calls the other side pagans and the other side responds by calling them Pharisees. So much for practicing love and humility!

When Christians debate birth control, they usually only talk about Genesis 1:28 and how we should fill the earth. But this is only half the story. Yes, when God commanded Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28 ESV), he certainly meant for them to have children. And they did: Cain, Abel, Seth, and “other sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:4)—a large family. Children are a blessing from the Lord (Psalms 127:3-5; 128:3-6)—but so is birth control. Birth control is a blessing in a world Christ is redeeming from death and curse.

After the fall, the first consequence God tells the woman is “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conceptions; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16 KJV). Modern translations have chosen to drop this idea of increased conception and make this curse all about pain in childbirth: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbirth; in pain you shall bring forth children” (ESV). (More on this here: Into the Weeds: Understanding the Hebrew in Genesis 3:16a.) And that’s a shame, because we miss the connection that the fall resulted in changed fertility, for both man and woman and for the ground (Genesis 3:17-18).

Increased conception is one consequence of the fall. Sin’s consequences on our bodies also mean some women are infertile or some husbands sterile. Some women experience debilitating, even life-threatening, illnesses during pregnancy. Some babies are born with birth defects, genetic and otherwise, and some infants die. Sin’s consequences also mean some families can’t make the ends of their budget meet, even though they work hard (see Genesis 3:17-19). These are just some of the new realities after the fall.

But God is gracious. Increased conception was also a blessing for Adam and Eve. Before the fall, they would have had all the time in the world, literally, to be fruitful and fill the earth. Now they were dying. The earliest patriarchs lived almost a thousand years, and according to Genesis 5, they had their first sons at the age of 100 or later. By Genesis 11, men and women are living fewer years and having children at younger ages. By the time we read of Sarah and Abraham, 70 years is past the age of childbearing, and by age 90 Sarah can only laugh at the absolutely impossible notion of ever having a child from her own body (see Genesis 16, 18).

Keil and Delitzsch, in their commentary on this verse, say increased conception “could be no punishment.” In a pre-Industrial agrarian society, where infant mortality was high and family farms needed laborers, that was largely true. (However, I would also point out that this was said by men, who never had to go through the “discomforts” of morning sickness, labor, etc.!) But in a postindustrial world, smaller families are “no punishment” either. In fact, birth control is a blessing.

Birth control is a blessing because it is the gift of God, like other medical knowledge that helps solve the problems of infertility, painful childbirth, infant mortality, and much more. God’s command to be fruitful and multiply was never a command to have as many children as a couple possibly can, nor was having children the only thing God had in mind when he said, “Be fruitful …” Genesis 1:28 is a call to be fruitful in all aspects of life, so that the world is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9) and God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). Within this kingdom-building task, God has given women many callings alongside that of motherhood. (See the woman of Proverbs 31!)

In a world still awaiting Christ’s final removal of every curse and sorrow and pain (see Revelation 21:4), birth control is a good thing!