Genesis 3:16
Hebrew Bible
15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.” 17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Onkelos Genesis 3:16
Targum
15 And I will put enmity between you and between the woman, and between your son and her son. He will remember you, what you did to him from the beginning, and you shall be observant to him at the end. 16 And to the woman He said, Multiplying, I will multiply your sorrows and your pains. In sorrow you shall bring forth children; and to your husband shall be your desire, and he shall rule over you. 17 And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast obeyed the word of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree (about) which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, accursed is the ground on thy account. With labour shalt thou eat from it all the days of thy life.
Date: 100-200 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Eruvin 100b
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
Rav Yitzḥak bar Avdimi proceeds to explain this verse. “To the woman He said: I will greatly multiply [harba arbe]”; these are the two drops of blood unique to a woman, which cause her suffering, one the blood of menstruation and the other one the blood of virginity. “Your pain”; this is the pain of raising children. “And your travail”; this is the pain of pregnancy. “In sorrow you shall bring forth children”; in accordance with its plain meaning, i.e., the pain of childbirth.
Date: 450-550 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Notes and References
"... Your pain ... this is the pain resulting from the difficulty in raising children (Rashi, based on the Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 100b), or during the first marital intercourse (ibn Ezra), or from menstruation (Sforno) ..."
Drazin, Israel, and Stanley M. Wagner
Onkelos on the Torah, Genesis: Understanding the Bible Text
(p. 18) Gefen, 2006
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
User Comments
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.