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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Genesis 3:16 - 3:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
I will greatly multiply, or certainly, as the repetition of the same word implies.
And thy conception, in diverse pains and infirmities peculiar to thy sex; i.e. Thou shalt have many, and those ofttimes, false and fruitless conceptions, and abortive births; and whereas thou mightest commonly have had many children at one conception, as some few women yet have, now thou shalt ordinarily undergo all the troubles and pains of conception, breeding, and birth, for every child which thou hast. Or,
thy sorrows and thy conception, by a figure called hendiaduo, are put for thy sorrows in conception, or rather in child-bearing, which the Hebrew word here used signifies, Gen_16:4, Jdg_13:3. Aristotle, in his Histor. Animal. 7, 9, observes, that women bring forth young with more pain than any other creatures.
Bring forth children, or bear, for the word notes all the pains and troubles which women have, both in the time of child-bearing, and in the act of bringing forth.
Sons, and daughters too, both being comprehended in the Hebrew word Sons, as Exo_22:24 Psa_128:6.
Thy desire shall be to thy husband; thy desires shall be referred or submitted to thy husband’s will and pleasure to grant or deny them, as he sees fit. Which sense is confirmed from Gen_4:7, where the same phrase is used in the same sense. And this punishment was both very proper for her that committed so great an error, as the eating of the forbidden fruit was, in compliance with her own desire, without asking her husband’s advice or consent, as in all reason she should have done in so weighty and doubtful a matter; and very grievous to her, because women’s affections use to be vehement, and it is irksome to them to have them restrained or denied. Seeing, for want of thy husband’s rule and conduct, thou wast seduced by the serpent, and didst abuse that power I gave thee together with thy husband to draw him to sin, thou shalt now be brought down to a lower degree, for he shall rule thee; not with that sweet and gentle hand which he formerly used, as a guide and counsellor only, but by a higher and harder hand, as a lord and governor, to whom I have now given a greater power and authority over thee than he had before, (which through thy pride and corruption will be far more uneasy unto thee than his former empire was), and who will usurp a further power than I have given him, and will, by my permission, for thy punishment, rule thee many times with rigour, tyranny, and cruelty, which thou wilt groan under, but shalt not be able to deliver thyself from it. See 1Co_14:34 1Ti_2:11-12 1Pe_3:6.