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Genesis 3:16 – NASB vs. HCSB
Genesis 3:16 NASB To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”
Genesis 3:16 HCSB (2004) He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will dominate you.
Genesis 3:16 HCSB (2010) He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish.Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
The updated version of the HCSB changes this back to “rule over you.” I will show how that is the correct and better understanding. But even with this change, the HCSB is inferior to the NASB.
To “rule” is a softer word than to “dominate.” While this verse is difficult to translate, some understand the whole verse to be a curse, including subjection. There is a curse in the pangs of child birth. There is a curse in the woman’s desire to rule over her husband. There is a curse in his domination of her.
Interpreting all of Gen.3:16 as a curse is a dissimilitude which is common. Many people wrongly interpret Gen.3:16c – “and he will rule over/dominate you” – as a curse. It is not for the following reasons:
To assume everything in Gen.3:16 is a curse would mean even the phrase, “Yet your desire will be for your husband,” is also a curse. The best way (with more evidence as to why to follow) to interpret Gen.3:16 is as follows. It is divided into three sections: 1) Curse; 2) Comfort; 3) Command.
The Curse: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children.”
The Comfort: “Yet (notice the contrasting nature of this word – even though I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth…) your desire will be for your husband.” That is a comfort for women, that they still will desire sexually their husbands even though the result will be more pain in childbirth. Even here in the beginning, we see God blessing and reassuring the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife.
The Command: “And he will rule over you.” Is this a curse? If it is, then it follows a comforting blessing. No, instead it is a command reiterating her relationship to her husband – which she broke in Gen.3:1-6. He rules. Some teach this rule of subjection is a curse. I will show why that is not contextually accurate, nor spiritually affirming in the following two stages.
If the phrase “and he will rule over you” is part of the curse, then we will not see the role of subjection prior to “the fall.” The point is we do. God created man first, and according to the distant context, the order of creation had a meaning of order, rule and subjection (1 Cor.11; 1 Tim.2). God gave man the order not to eat (2:16-17). No where do we find Him giving this command to Eve. She knows it (3:1-3), and we can assume she either learned it from Adam or God Himself. I think she learned it from Adam. Adam named his wife (2:24; 3:20). She took both “his name” (i.e. “woman because she was taken out of man;” she received her “own name” (i.e. Eve) from Adam. Just as he named the animals (2:20), Adam named his wife (2:23). We continue this practice by giving our wives our last name. God gave her the shared name of Man/Adam (Heb. – Man and Adam are the same in Hebrew) (Gen.1:26ff). Eve could correctly be called a “man;” but Adam could not be called, “woman.” Eve was created for Adam, not the other way around (1 Cor.11). Eve was made from Adam, not the other way around (Gen.2:21). Adam was condemned for two sins: 1) “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,” and 2) “and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you saying, `You shall not eat from it.’
As we can see from the above, a husband was to rule over his wife before “the fall.”
Plus, when we look at the Hebrew word for “rule over/dominate” we see it used in Genesis 1:18 describing the sun and moon. The NASB there translates it as “govern.” The sun and moon do not dominate in the sense of a curse. They rule or govern.
The updated version of the HCSB goes back to the NASB, “rule over,” but still implies a curse by using the word “yet” not as contrasting her pain in childbirth and her desire for her husband, but rather her desire for her husband and his rule over her. This is often misunderstood as the wife will desire to rule over her husband but the husband will rule over the wife.
In this verse, the NASB has the better translation.
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