Geneses 3:16

Does God punish women with pain in childbirth?

According to some translations of Gen 3:16 like the ESV which says "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” it sure sounds like it. The problem with this interpretation of the verse is that the words in Hebrew which are used are not the same as the word used for childbearing in the rest of the bible.

The word used for pain is NOT the same as the Hebrew word for labor pain. The word pain ( ‘itsabon) is the same word used for the man in verse 17.  ( in ‘itsabon you will eat from the ground) whatever characterizes the ‘itsabon of the human is being put in a parallel relationship.

Translation is active interpretation. There are 2 realities of this text.

Its the same word in verse 17 that translated as toil. There are three different words for pain in childbirth throughout the bible yet ‘itsabon is never used neither is its root word.

The form of the noun in this verse only appears to mean she got pregnant or conceived, it comes from the Hebrew root hārâ. The verb occurs 62 times in the Hebrew bible. Each time it is used to say that she got pregnant. 

Now in the second part of the verse, the word IS for birth. The word is ‘atsab, this word is used for both how you get pregnant and childbearing. In other words, whatever this means it is not talking about labor pains, it's talking about the circumstances a baby is conceived and born.

 So what does all this mean? We will see this word ‘atsab again in Genesis 6:6, Yahweh (God) experienced  ‘atsab when he looks at the evil on the earth he felt extreme regret about the humans and his heart is full of this kind of pain or  ‘atsab, we would call this emotional grief. Many verses in scripture use the word ‘atsab to mean grief. If we think back on scripture we can probably think of situations where babies are conceived amid anger, grief, and broken relationships. Let's think of a few, Rachel and Leah, Ishmael and Issac, it is interesting that both of those stories start out with infertility. In Genesis 3 Yahweh declares that HE will increase ‘itsabon so when Rachel could not conceive she blames Jacob and he gets angry and asks her “Am I Yahweh?”

In conclusion, this scripture is NOT talking about pain in childbirth but the circumstances a baby is conceived and born. 

Genesis 3:16 I will greatly multiply your grief in conception, in grief, you will birth children.