Sentence is Handed Down (Gen 3:16)

Into and Out of the Garden

Somewhat to my surprise, by the time I had finished commenting on the first three Hebrew words of this verse — five English words, “Unto the woman he said,” in the King James translation — I had written 800 English words of my own. So I’ll start with two quick notes.

The first is a reminder that the traditional Hebrew text of the Bible creates visual spacing that focuses the eye on this verse addressed to the woman; read more about that in the previous post.

The second is a full translation of the complete verse, since we won’t be getting into the meat of it until next time. This one is by Carol Meyers, who proposes this translation:

I will make great your toil and many your pregnancies;

with hardship shall you have children.

Your turning is to your man/husband,

and he shall rule/control you [sexually].

More — undoubtedly, much more — on the content of YHWH’s speech to the woman when we continue. First, these 800 words on the “easy” part of the verse. There must be some people who find this method of reading the Bible excruciatingly slow. I can only reiterate that there is so, so much to learn by slowing down and spending “quality time” with even the simplest words. Here are three of them:

¹⁶ … to the woman: אֶֽל־הָאִשָּׁ֣ה אָמַ֗ר

At last YHWH will speak to one of the human perps — in fact, to the one who initiated the “crime,” the one responsible for Original Sin if you care to believe in that doctrine, though “sin” is not mentioned anywhere in our story. Naturally, therefore, as a responsible biblical theologian, my immediate responsibility to discuss the converted imperfect.

Details in a moment for those whose Biblical Hebrew grammar is not always top of mind (or check back to my post about Gen 1:5 if you can’t wait). I hear those who do know some grammar clamoring, “There is no converted imperfect here!” As Sherlock Holmes said about the dog who did nothing in the nighttime, that is exactly the point.

In brief — more in that post about naming Day and Night — there are two past tense forms in Biblical Hebrew:

• the perfect — same one used here, the standard way to say “he said” in Modern Hebrew

• the converted imperfect — the form restricted to Biblical Hebrew that tells us the next thing that happened

  [Lesson 11 of my Hebrew course will give you more details about these forms; don’t forget you can watch Lesson 1 for free here.]

In Gen 1:5, God “called” the light Day with a converted imperfect because that’s the next thing he did after separating light and darkness. He “called” the darkness Night with a perfect, telling us that this was not the next event in sequence. The context makes it clear why: He named them simultaneously.

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