Tag: The Fall

He will rule over you: Prescription or Description?

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Women of Scripture

I realize that this is a series on the women of the Bible and their stories, and last week I spent the entire article talking about the first sin, but it’s important to our understanding of the stories of women in the Bible. So much of what we believe about Genesis 1-3 influences the way we read the rest of Scripture. A bit more heavy lifting this week, and then on to other stories next week.

Last week we discussed how Genesis 3 is not an elevation of man over woman. It shows us that sin is a problem that impacts all creation – humans, animals, and even the garden which is now devoid of its human caretakers. The point we are to take away is that sin affects everything. That is consistent with the consequences of the sin that God enumerates in the last half of chapter 3. I find it fascinating that the word “cursed” is applied to the serpent, and to the ground because of Adam’s failure, but not to Eve.

The real reason we are looking at this passage again is our understanding of verse 16, specifically the last half of the verse:

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16b NIV

Many have interpreted this verse as a sexual desire on the part of the woman, and God now wants man to be in charge. Let’s take a look at this verse within the immediate context of Genesis 3, and the larger context of Genesis and the whole of Scripture.  Genesis 4:7 is a parallel verse to Genesis 3:16 using the same Hebrew words:

“…[sin] desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Genesis 4:7 NIV

With regards to Cain we understand from the same Hebrew language that sin wants to possess Cain, but Cain’s response should be to rule over sin. We get that. Yet the same language when used with the consequences of sin in the Garden gets interpreted differently because we think God wants men to rule over women. This is not how God established relationships in the Garden. He did not create Eve as subservient to Adam (as we looked at for the last two weeks.) Remember, the Garden was God’s ideal environment for humans, but now as a result of sin there will be broken relationships between humans and God, and between men and women, each seeking to dominate the other. I really appreciated Derek Kinder’s statement about this phrase in his commentary on Genesis.

“‘To love and to cherish’ becomes ‘To desire and to dominate’. While even pagan marriage can rise far above this, the pull of sin is always towards it.”  

Derek Kinder, Genesis: an introduction and commentary

So are we to take Genesis 3:16b as God describing the effects of sin, or are we to take the statement as a prescription/authority for man to rule over women going forward? We will answer that question through the rest of this series. From here we will continue to look at how God’s Word describes the relationship between men and women throughout the story of the Bible. We’ll look at how each story portrays this relationship and how those stories should influence our churches today.

Next week we’ll look at Miriam, who is much more than the sister of Moses. She is a child of God with an important role to play.

Question: What was Miriam’s role in God’s rescue of Israel?

Eve: Equality with Adam

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Women of Scripture

Today we will begin a series of articles that will focus on the women of the Bible. I must confess that for many years I read the Bible without noticing many of these names and their significance to God’s story, but they are significant to God’s story! Knowing the stories of these women is vitally important to understanding the nature of God. Based on a show-of-hands poll at a recent Bible conference I attended, many (including some in ministry) don’t know these stories even though the Spirit placed them in the pages of the Bible. I hope in some small way these articles will begin to change that. The first woman we will look at is not a stranger to most. In fact she’s the first woman of all: Eve.

Eve has received a lot of blame, scorn, and shame throughout the centuries even though she did what you and I do virtually every day – Eve disobeyed God. For some reason scholars and believers have tried to make Eve somehow fundamentally less than Adam, though that was certainly not how God viewed things. Eve was created equal to Adam. She is just as important to God’s story as he. Consider the following verses:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27 NIV

Notice that both Adam and Eve are created fully in the image of God. Notice also that they are one: mankind. Nowhere in the story is it even hinted that Eve is somehow less than Adam. Our roles of gender inequality have been heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle who believed that women were sub-human, less human than men (see Politics 1.1260a). For years we’ve read this worldview onto the story of Eve, as well as other women in Scripture.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18 NIV

Time for a Hebrew lesson. The Hebrew phrase translated here as “helper suitable” and in other translations “help meet” is ezer kenegdo. Many look at this phrase from an English standpoint and say this means Eve was less than Adam because she was his helper. The problem with that is that God himself is referred to as our ezer (helper) in a number of places in Scripture (see Ps. 33:20 for example). Does that mean that God is somehow less than us because he helps us? Quite the contrary! He is more powerful than us which means he can help us! God himself is the only other ezer in all of Scripture: God & Eve! The word kenegdo regulates ezer by indicating that this is a helper in likeness, someone who is like the other that can help. According to Dr. Kindy DeLong, without kenegdo a Hebrew reader would have to assume that Eve was more powerful than Adam, but kenegdo shows equality.

Nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 indicates that Eve is somehow inferior to Adam. In fact, it proves quite the opposite. Both Adam and Eve are fully created in the image of God. Eve is a “helper” (ezer) for Adam just as God is a “helper” (ezer) for the psalmist. Instead of God being superior to the psalmist, Eve here is portrayed as equal (kenegdo) to Adam. Next week we’ll look at Genesis 3, and how the New Testament uses that story.

Question to consider: Who sinned first? Adam or Eve? (hint: re-read Gen. 1-3)

Much of the content of this article was inspired by a lecture i attended given by Dr. Kindy DeLong during Harbor 2019 at Pepperdine University. You can listen to the lecture by clicking here.