Unbinding Genesis 3:16: A Theocentric Critique of Sex-Based Power

Abstract

The judgment of Eve in Genesis 3:16 has traditionally been construed as an etiological curse on the relationship dynamics between genders, garnering scholarly scrutiny on the terms for desire and rule. Many exegetes regard this verse as the biblical rationale for patriarchal cultures throughout history. Despite attempts to ameliorate the notion of husbandly rule to protectorship, guidance, and loving servant-leadership, the power asymmetry between genders hinges on the interpretation of a simple Hebrew preposition b^e, commonly translated as “over” at the end of Genesis 3:16 as “he shall rule over you”. This article re-examines the semantics of the linguistic pairing of the particular ruling verb māšal followed by the preposition b^e through three verses in close proximity: Genesis 1:18, Genesis 3:16, and Genesis 4:7. Given the contextual sensitivity inherent in flexible prepositions, a theocentric reinterpretation of the surrounding narrative opens the possibility for a new redemptive reading by rendering the preposition as “with,” a meaning well within its semantic spectrum. In that case, to a woman hurt by betrayals from the animal, botanical, and human realms of her new existence, God promises help in healing her damaged marriage by intensifying her emotional desire for her husband, then chiding Eve to include him in her future decisions: “and he must rule with you”.

1. Introduction

In Genesis 3:16, the final phrase, commonly translated as “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you” (ESV)1, has been interpreted as a foundational etiological curse affecting the relationship power dynamics between genders. As traditionally interpreted, Adam was given power by God to rule over his wife. Extrapolated as a cultural framework, in patrimony, inherited property and economic wealth are exclusively reserved for the males in the family line, and in patriarchy, societal power and leadership roles are primarily given to men. Patriarchy has been the dominant culture in human history.

However, this widespread interpretation of divinely ordained female subjugation as Eve’s judgment in Genesis 3:16 makes the most sense if God’s pronouncement on her is read in isolation, that is, if God’s words to Eve are not compared to His words to the serpent and Adam (Gen 3:14–15; 3:17–19). When the three divine speeches are compared, Eve’s judgment is different from the other two in seven surprising ways.

• Brevity: Eve’s curse is the most succinct. It is only one verse compared to two and three for the others (Meyers 2013).
• No “curse”: God never employs the term for a curse in addressing Eve, but it is prominent in His speech to the snake, “Cursed are you,” and to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Trible 1978).
• No cause-effect indictment formula of “because … cursed”: The snake is told “Because you have done this, cursed are you” and the formula for Adam is very specific, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ ‘cursed is the ground because of you.’” (Meyers 2013; Trible 1978) (italics added). There is no corresponding causative indictment formula for what Eve did.
• No mention of the term for eating, the forbidden act: The snake is cursed by “and dust you shall eat” (Cline 1990) and Adam’s sentence is emphatically punctuated by it five times: “and have eaten of the tree … which I commanded you”, “You shall not eat of it … in pain you shall eat of it … you shall eat the plants of the field … by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread”. Though Eve deliberated on the edible aspects of the fruit and imbibed first, then offered it as food for her husband, this term is not in God’s judgment on her.
• No clear allusion to death, the promised consequence: The snake is told “he shall bruise your head” and Adam is told twice “til you return to the ground … to dust you shall return”. Though death during childbirth is a real but infrequent danger (Loudon 1986),2 it is the generativity of life accompanied by suffering that is the motif of Eve’s judgment. She is subsequently named Eve, the mother of all living humans.
• Shorter duration of punishment with infrequent occurrence: If the brunt of Eve’s judgment is painful childbirth, it is only possible between menarche and menopause and usually only once a year. For most women, it occurs less than ten times in their entire life. In stark contrast, the snake will suffer his curse “all the days of your life” and Adam will also suffer “all the days of your life”.
• First-person tone: Notably, God uses the second-person address to curse the serpent, “Cursed are you”, and the third-person in the curse related to Adam, “Cursed is the ground for your sake”; however, when he refers to Eve, God consistently uses the first-person voice: “I will put enmity” and “I will greatly multiply”.

Whereas theologians and most biblical readers are harder on Eve than on Adam by assigning her higher culpability, citing her initiating role and presumed moral weakness of character, God’s judgment on Eve in Genesis 3:16 is objectively milder and gentler than His judgment on Adam or the snake. If such discrepancies were issued from a human judge, a formal inquiry into unjust favoritism for the female defendant might ensue. Both ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, both admitted “I ate”. Retributive justice requires the punishment to fit the crime and to be applied consistently. Thus, why a clear difference in the severity of punishment and divine tone toward Eve? Have human interpreters been unconsciously infusing societal and gender prejudices into their reading of Eve’s judgment that are incongruous with God’s judgment and treatment of her?

2. Methodology

This article will embark on a theocentric (Fewell and Gunn 1993)3 narrative analysis of Genesis 3:16. The discussion will utilize a synchronic approach to the final form of text in the Christian canon of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, privileging divine utterances as the key to its meaning.

But one may ask, can a theocentric norm from within the text be valid? Monroe Beardsley argued that only by positing a rational objective methodological control, a “nonrelativistic logic for explication”, to test subjective conjectures can there be any credible criteria of meaning (Beardsley 1981). However, an external or contextual approach to meaning is only one avenue among many to legitimate interpretation. Since multiple contexts are available for any interpretation of biblical texts (e.g., the work of the author, redacted pericope, biblical book, subsection of the Jewish canon, entire Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible, exegetical traditions of the church or rabbis, etc.) (Levenson 1993)4, a contextual approach alone multiplies contention rather than minimizing it. No wonder Jon Levenson finds it “disingenuous and shortsighted to accuse proponents of any one of them of ‘taking the passage out of context’” (Levenson 1993).

For example, the universalistic and rational approach of the historical-critical method privileges the historical context while shortchanging the literary aspects of the completed work. This method is unable to transcend the limitations of historicism and empiricism, for these cannot support the notion of transhistorical truth or transcultural value. They cannot justify a preference for any data over another (Levenson 1993).5 Thus, it may be prudent to also seek an internal norm or anchor in the text. But can the text function as its own norm? Paul Ricoeur recognized that texts routinely function as their own norm in everyday reading, first by generating a plentitude of possible connotations in the mind of the reader, then restricting the range of those connotations to the subject matter of the text (Wallace 1990).

In the biblical narrative of Genesis 3, populated by four speaking characters, understanding the meaning of Genesis 3:16 requires understanding the divine speaker of that verse with His point of view on the subject matter and his perspective on Eve at that moment in the storyline. This discussion will therefore prioritize divine utterances as the internal norm to extract a theocentric hermeneutic from the given context to understand what God meant in His judgment of Eve.

To be clear, the goal of this article is not to supplant the traditional interpretation with another dogmatic one, rehash the battle over the correct relations between men and women, or pursue a feminist hermeneutic of suspicion (Exum 1993).6 Rather, it aims more modestly to open the interpretive paradigm to a neglected point of view, to move from an anthropocentric to a theocentric perspective. This interpretive switch from a horizontal to a vertical plane may then suggest a tweak to the translation of one tiny prepositional prefix if the theocentric hermeneutic shows it is indicated. From that one infinitesimal lever, the previously unchallenged assumption of a God-ordained, fixed sex-based power differential between the genders may shift.

In the supporting arguments that follow, three hermeneutical methodologies will be employed. First, Donald Davidson’s Principle of Charity (Davidson 1986; Quine [1960] 2013; Gadamer 1991)7 encourages understanding the text and any speaker’s words or actions in the most rationally intelligent, non-self-contradictory (Davidson 1986),8 and morally commendable manner possible. This principle acknowledges reasonability as a basic ground for all understanding; one cannot understand what one finds completely unreasonable. Without necessitating the interpreter’s complete agreement with the speaker, the interpreter should first attempt to grasp the actions and words of the other as coherent from the other’s point of view, assume the other is a competent speaker, and avoid the misattribution of irrationality or inconsistency unless there is clear textual evidence for it. Willard Quine applied a proto-version of the Principle of Charity to translation challenges with his famous quip, “Assertions startlingly false on the face of them are likely to turn on hidden differences of language” (Quine [1960] 2013).9

Second, the Principle of Humanity assumes a holistic framework where the speaker’s general beliefs and desires are connected to the realities of the same time–space world as the reader. Daniel Dennett suggests that “one should attribute to a creature the propositional attitude one supposed one would have oneself in those circumstances”. Epistemic virtues of humility, empathy, and nuanced interpretation emerge from attributing to the other a holistic and relatable framework (Grandy 1973; Fitzgerald 2008).10

The final hermeneutical methodology is Hans-Georg Gadamer’s “fore-conception of completeness”. This concept emphasizes the importance of identifying the underlying question or need that the text or speech seeks to address, for all communication presumes an existing situation (Gadamer 1991).11 But how can we ascertain this if it is not explicitly stated in the text? Gadamer explains, “We can understand a text only when have understood the question to which it is an answer. But this question can be derived solely from the text and accordingly, the appropriateness of the reply is the methodological presupposition for the reconstruction of the question” (Gadamer 1991).12 A presupposition of divine appropriateness to a situation is already tacitly assumed by most Judeo-Christian faith communities who profess God to be all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. In other words, assuming God’s judgment on Eve to be perfectly accurate and tailored to her needs may deepen understanding of the text while at the same time minimizing inappropriate individual and cultural prejudices from the interpreter being imposed upon it unconsciously (Schmidt 2020).13 Going forward, Genesis 3:16 will be interpreted in the most logical and moral manner by assuming the narrative characters depict rational beings interacting in a world structured like ours, and the divine sentence on Eve will be analyzed as the most appropriate divine response to her unspoken questions and needs.

To sharpen the discussion, this article will focus on the semantics of the simple Hebrew preposition b^e in the pairing māšal b^e, commonly rendered as “rule over” in the phrase “he shall rule over you”. The ensuing analysis will concentrate on three verses that contain this linguistic pairing: Genesis 1:18, Genesis 3:16, and Genesis 4:7. Because all three verses are clustered in the early chapters of Genesis, they invite critical comparative analysis. How they are translated reveals assumptions and carries significant implications.

This article will proceed through four sections. First, including Genesis 1:18, several translations of māšal b^e will be evaluated against their context. In the next section, Eve’s hermeneutical-social location will be reconstructed from theocentrically indicated aspects of Genesis 3:16 by employing the three hermeneutical principles. The subsequent section interprets the māšal b^e of Genesis 3:16 in a self-consistent theocentric manner. The final section applies these findings from Genesis 3:16 to the sister text of Genesis 4:7 for a theocentric reading of God’s address to Cain. By examining these three texts from a theocentric perspective, this article aims to illuminate broader themes concerning divine intervention in healing human relationships and empowering moral agency within the Genesis narrative.

3. Genesis 1:18. Grammar and Context of māšal b^e

At the beginning of Eve’s sentence in Genesis 3:16, the genitive forms of iṣṣābôn (“your painful toil”) (Meyers 2013)14 and heron (“your conception”) (Meyers 2013)15 indicate what God is increasing or making great (Meyers 2013).16 A third attribute of Eve, tešûqāh (“your desire”), shares the same genitive form as the other two and is linked to them by a conjunction. Thus, it can function grammatically as the third direct object of the divine action:17

(a)

I will greatly multiply

(b)

your sorrow (iṣṣābôn) and your conception (heron),

(c)

(in pain (etseb) you shall bring forth children)

(d)

and toward your husband, your desire (tešûqāh)

However, the following phrase, commonly translated as “and he shall rule over (māšal b^e) you”, remains the most contentious. Scholarly scrutiny has focused on the Hebrew terms for desire (tešûqāh) and rulership (māšal) to soften the traditional interpretation of a divinely ordained power hierarchy of a husband over his wife. It is rarely recognized that the prepositional prefix b^e, translated as “over”, is the critical pivot for the power battle between the sexes.

In the Bible, the preposition b^e is most often translated as “in”, “within”, “at, by, on”, or “with” (Brown et al. 1996). When it is translated as “with”, the associative or accompaniment meaning is the most common but it may also refer to an instrumental meaning as the context dictates.18 When the preposition b^e is paired with verbs denoting rulership or authority, such as māšal, it has been almost universally rendered as “over” (Brown et al. 1996)19, although exceptions do exist. For instance, Psalms 59:13 is translated as either “rule over” (emphasizing dominance and ownership) or “rule in” (emphasizing alliance and protection). Some versions will render it as “consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules over [māšal b^e] Jacob to the ends of the earth”20, while other versions choose to say “that they may know that God rules in [māšal b^e] Jacob”.21

Thus, the common convention of translating māšal b^e as “rule over” is clearly not a grammatical straitjacket, yet its widespread prevalence reflects the assumption of a vertical power dynamic, a top–down imposition between the two nouns it connects. The absolute dominance of this translation pattern for Genesis 3:16 between Adam and Eve exposes broader cultural and theological assumptions regarding the subject of gender roles and relationships, wherein male dominance and female submission, which have been historically prevalent, are accepted as natural or normative. From that sociological context, it is understandable that this phrase in the Judeo-Christian canon has been appropriated as divine etiology for the patriarchal paradigm. However, intuitive etiology should not override exegesis.

The final phrase of Genesis 3:16 is typically rendered “and he shall rule over you”.22 However, the grammatical semantic scope of māšal b^e allows for more than one kind of ruling relations. Grammatically, it can be translated as rule over, rule with, rule in, rule within, rule on, rule through, rule by, and rule at. The plentitude of grammatical possibilities must be subsequently constrained by the context and subject matter of the text (Wallace 1990).23

Instructive is the case of Psalm 66:7, where māšal b^e is not translated as “rule over” but “rule with” or “rule by”. This verse demonstrates that māšal b^e does not have to be followed by a direct object, for here, the two nouns on either side function as the subject and prepositional object. Psalms 66:7 is translated either “He rules with [māšal b^e] his power forever”24 or “He rules by [māšal b^e] his power forever”.25 The logical sense of the sentence indicates an instrumental use of power is needed and māšal b^e is translated accordingly.

Sometimes, the wider narrative context opens the meaning and translation of māšal b^e to more than one option. The first occurrence of this pairing in the Bible occurs in Genesis 1:18. Two verses earlier, Genesis 1:16 referred to the great lights ruling the day and ruling the night; however, in Genesis 1:18, the preposition b^e is deliberately inserted into the identical phrase. Conventionally translated as “to rule over [b^e] the day and over [b^e] the night”, if the meaning of over is confined to spatial hierarchy, it parallels the meaning of the preceding verse, “And God set them in [b^e] the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth” (Genesis 1:17).

However, if the meaning of “rule over” refers to a functional hierarchy that denotes determinative, causative, or controlling power, as is commonly assumed for the meaning of that same phrase in Genesis 3:16 between Adam and Eve, this meaning of functional hierarchy does not fit Genesis 1:18 within the chronotope (Bakhtin 1981)26 of the Creation narrative. In Creation, the two time periods of day and night were clearly established on the first day (Gen 1:5), so they cannot be contingent or caused by the subsequent functions of the greater and lesser lights established later on the fourth day (Gen 1:14–19). Although the modern definition of a “day” is contingent on sunlight illuminating a part of the earth’s surface, this contemporary intuition cannot override the Creation chronological context where it is the other way around, where the “day” precedes the function of the sun. Intuitive etiology cannot override exegesis.

One way to incorporate the Creation order of day and night as pre-existent time periods is to choose “in” for b^e, which falls well within its semantic scope. This would mean that the greater and lesser lights were set up to function within already demarcated time zones of day and night. Since the translation of b^e as “in” is already present in the first part of the verse, this choice also renders consistency. Indeed, this choice is aligned with the Creation context, is consistent within the verse, and supplies a distinctive function within the triadic literary structure of Genesis 1:17–18, which showcases three functions of the greater and lesser lights, each introduced by the preposition “to”.27

And God set them in [b^e] the expanse of the heavens:

To give light on the earth, and

To rule in [māšal b^e] the day and in [b^e] the night, and

To separate the light from the darkness,

And God saw that it was good.

These examples underscore the critical role of contextual hermeneutics in interpreting and translating flexible prepositions such as b^e. The subject matter and the literary context should play the leading role in determining the meaning which then guides the correct translation, not the other way around.28

4. Genesis 2–3. A Theocentric Framing of Eve’s Social-Hermeneutical Location

Contextual hermeneutics are vital to understanding the divine perspective of Genesis 3:16. If the reader views God’s sentencing of Eve as the most fitting response to Eve’s human condition as the ‘fore-conception of completeness’ suggests, then these divine words reveal His knowledge of Eve’s past, present, and future needs. What aspects of her needs were addressed? For this article, I will focus on only three from the end of Genesis 3:16: the first-person tone in God’s address to Eve, her desire toward her husband, and her husband’s rulership in relation to her.

Turning these into hermeneutical questions for analyzing Eve, they become: Why does God choose a direct first-person tone in relation to Eve? Why does Eve’s desire for her husband need to be addressed by God? Why does God bring up her husband’s rulership in relation to her? Using these questions as guidelines, Eve’s hermeneutical-social location can be reconstructed by paying close attention to the divinely indicated themes of marital desire, marital power, and Eve’s relation to God. A hermeneutical-social location refers to the social dynamics of life experience that mold one’s interpretive abilities (Irizarry 2023).29

Genesis 2 reveals that Eve was created after Adam. This means that certain experiences occurred between God and Adam that Eve could not share. Assuming no transfer of memories through the materials of the dust or the side, as hermeneutical creatures trying to make sense of their world and life, Adam and Eve would plausibly interpret God and the serpent slightly differently based on their unique life experiences. What are some possible differences in their experiential knowledge that may impact their understanding? We will employ the Principle of Humanity to understand Eve from the textual evidence given.

First, the divine imperative to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was given directly to Adam (Genesis 2:16–17) preceding Eve’s creation (Genesis 2:22). If Eve received this command second-hand from Adam, it may not have carried the same weight of personal accountability that Adam has for it because he received it directly and she, indirectly. By extension, if it was transmitted through a human chain of transmission, only sloppy exegetes would pin her as the sure source of the additional injunction “neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Gen 3:3), for either human could have added it to God’s injunction (The William Davidson Talmud 2019; Genesis Rabbah 1961).30 Though Eve was clearly aware of the divine prohibition, God’s incisive personal incrimination of Adam’s disobedience, “which I commanded you not to eat,” addressing only him in the masculine singular and repeated twice (Gen 3:11, 17), accentuates that God holds Adam personally responsible for this infraction of a direct person-to-person command. This divine element of personal offence is missing from Eve’s sentencing even though she was the instigator of the infraction.

Second, Adam’s naming of the animals that ended with his recognition that they did not match himself implies an evaluation of their range of behaviors and capabilities. Since Eve did not participate in his comprehensive cataloging, an encounter with a talking snake may not have struck her as strange or bizarre. Just as today’s scientists assume animals communicate and are thrilled when they crack their code, Eve may have been excited by her personal discovery of a new loquacious species (Patterson and Cohn 1990).31

Third, Eve’s first encounter with Adam was marked by an unexpected outburst of lyrical creativity that claimed truths regarding her identity, her derivation, and her material constitution (Gen 2:23). From this, Eve may have been biased positively toward revelations of hidden creaturely capacities, as well as their explanatory power. It would not be surprising then, without any prior experience of lies, betrayal, or deception, that she is more curious than afraid when meeting a talking serpent with a novel perspective on God and on her untapped potential.

Fourth, having experienced life without her, Adam was passionately drawn to Eve and expressed it at their first encounter. It is not recorded that she responded in a similar manner (Genesis 2:22–23). To be fair, it is not recorded that Adam said anything at his own creation (Genesis 2:7–8). But, like a younger sibling relating to an older one, Eve might have taken him for granted as just one of the many marvelous creatures encountered in her new world. Due to his survey of animals, he had come to yearn for a creation that was uniquely like him, whereas she had no reason to feel similarly. Thus, it is probable that their desire for the other was asymmetrical in intensity.

This asymmetry of desire matches the asymmetry of sacrifice in the following verse, which refers to their initial encounter in Gen 2:23 as the reason why a man leaves his closest relatives, his mother and father, to cling to his new wife as one flesh (Gen 2:24). The wife, on the other hand, is not at all mentioned as sacrificing her origins. This verse does not fit the usual definition of etiology that explains a contemporary situation by a historical or mythical cause because most cultures, including the patriarchal Israelite culture, facilitate the absorption of a wife’s identity and services into the husband’s family line, not the other way around. Even today, women routinely take on their husband’s family name in marriage. In more rigidly patriarchal cultures, the wife leaves her original home and lives with her husband’s parents, serving them as well as her husband for the rest of her life. But this verse may be etiological in a more immediate manner by explaining or developing what will soon follow as an unexpected twist in the narrative. The evident passion Adam exhibits for Eve may predispose him, if confronted by conflicting choices, to desert his origins and cling to his wife instead. But before that pending rupture, Genesis 2:25 states that the couple were naked without shame for their marital union was one of trusting vulnerability.

From the background provided by the text, the reader has been set up for how Eve engages with the snake. Eve’s response to the serpent’s inquiries suggests a readiness to engage with the creature as a rational and inquisitive entity. The serpent refers to Eve using plural nouns, addressing her as representative of the human pair. Eve responds in the plural form, identifying herself as with Adam as a unit (Gen 3:1–5). However, when it comes to making the decision to violate the divine proscription, Eve’s deliberations turn inward. Her exclusive assessment of the tree’s beauty, utility, and her desire for its supposed wisdom dominates (Gen 3:6). In this momentous decision of life or death, becoming “like God” or remaining God-like humans, experiencing32 good and evil to obtain wisdom or trusting God to grant it appropriately, she acts independently and alone.

After eating, she gave some “to her husband who was with [im] her, and he ate” (Gen 3:6). The phrase “with her” is echoed later by Adam in Gen 3:12, “the woman whom you gave to be with [im] me”. It can refer to physical or relational proximity (Parker 2013). If Adam was in physical proximity when Eve encountered the snake, overheard their dialogue, was not deceived as his wife was (1 Tim 2:14), and yet declined to intervene and ate the fruit when it was offered, he bears greater moral culpability. On the other hand, if “with her” refers to relational proximity and Adam was not nearby when it happened, then with greater physical and epistemic distance33, his deliberations would be more objective than Eve’s in weighing the snake’s counterclaims. In the second scenario of epistemic distance, Adam had first-hand knowledge of God’s prohibition and Eve had first-hand knowledge of the snake’s claims. First-hand knowledge usually garners epistemic priority in decision-making.34 But, in the end, Adam ate the fruit Eve offered.

According to the New Testament perspective in 1 Timothy 2:14, Eve transgressed because she was fooled while Adam transgressed knowing the snake lied and his wife was wrong. Genesis 3:6 says she desired wisdom,35 but the text does not say what he desired at the time of eating. However, applying the Principle of Charity, the charitable interpretation from God’s indictment of Adam in Gen 3:17 is that he chose her word over God’s word because of his ardent desire for Eve, as expressed in Gen 2:23. Adam fulfilled the etiological description in Gen 2:24 of a man leaving his origins to cleave to his new wife.

Their ensuing experiences solidify their sinful solidarity. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:7–8). However, a curious distinction flags their final activity. Upon hearing the Lord in the garden, “the man and his wife hid themselves” (Genesis 3:8). Prior to this, the plural pronoun “they” led each activity but the separated sequence of “the man and his wife” implies that Adam led his woman into avoiding God (Doukhan 2016).36 Given Adam’s greater knowledge of God, if he were to hide, Eve would follow him to elude God too. Thus, the text documents that after eating the fruit, Eve consistently acted in union with Adam and may have followed his lead. Eve demonstrated no hint of insubordination or rebellion against her husband, even to her own detriment.

God then addressed the hiding pair. It makes natural sense for God to address Adam first because, by chronology, he knows God better, he was the direct recipient of God’s prohibition, and he probably led in avoiding God’s presence. Inferring essential sex-based headship from the divine preference to start with Adam is unnecessary when the text has already provided ample hermeneutical justifications for it.

To God’s inquiry, “Where are you?”, Adam responded, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself”. Though Adam was not literally naked due to his fig leaf loincloth, his answer indicated that the plant covering did not resolve his sense of fearful vulnerability. Adam’s answer also revealed that he interpreted God’s question to be about relationship and not spatial location.37 The Principle of Humanity, which connects Adam’s current beliefs to his prior experiences in the world, suggests that when Adam witnessed the gathering of all the animals God formed, which God brought to him for naming (Gen 2:19), he may have recognized God’s exhaustive knowledge of the physical whereabouts of His creatures. In addition, a competent interpreter will surmise from Adam’s response that the divine tone must have sounded safe enough for an initially terrified Adam to eventually expose himself. Clearly, Adam interpreted and responded differently from how a stranger might understand the same question. Dialogical meaning transcends the literal question or answer by evoking the shared experiences of the conversates as the framework for what is being asked.

Because Genesis 3 contains the only recorded dialogues between God and the pair and this interaction constitutes the cross-examination for the following divine judgment, it deserves careful analysis (Westermann 1974). Adam and Eve’s answers may sound the same, but their meanings are very different. Their final answers were:

Adam: “She gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate”.

Gen 3:12

Eve: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate”.

Gen 3:13

Similar sentence structures may suggest both are deflecting, trying to avoid personal accountability before finally admitting their guilt. But discriminating between blaming versus deflection is morally important. Blaming merely allocates culpability while deflecting is inappropriately bending or redirecting culpability toward another to minimize one’s own. Which is happening here? To ascertain this, both the question and the answer must be considered together because dialogical meaning arises from their juxtaposition. For example, if the response “I do” is said after the pastor asks, “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”, then it means the respondent wants to be married. But if it is said after a frustrated spouse asks, “Do you want a divorce, then?”, the same response of “I do” means the respondent wants to be divorced.

In the final exchange between God and the guilty pair, Adam and Eve’s answers are famous but God’s questions have been historically overlooked. Yet it is the question that sets the initial parameters for the exchange and the meaning of the response must be ascertained in relation to the question. This is particularly apt to the trial-like setting of God’s cross-interrogation of the guilty pair in Genesis 3.

God’s three questions for Adam were centripetal first-order interrogations honing in on his personal responsibility: “Where—? Who—? Have you eaten—?” Most interpretations read Adam’s answers as responding to God’s first and last questions and ignoring the middle one because of linguistic clumping. However, the Principle of Charity that attributes the best and most logical sense possible suggests Adam’s answers could be logically lined up as a response to each divine question in turn. The logical matchup (again, not rhetorical) could be understood as this:

God: “Where are you?

Adam: “I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself”.

God: “Who told you that you were naked?”

Adam: “The woman you gave to be with me”.

God: “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Adam: “She gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate”.

It is to be noted that God’s final question precluded the possibility of blaming others by requiring from Adam a straightforward “yes-or-no” answer. To God’s question “Have you eaten—?”, Adam’s reply “I ate” was the appropriate answer. The deflection of “She gave me fruit of the tree” was superfluous, intentionally distracting, and inappropriate to God’s question. Adam should have answered, “I ate” and left it at that.

Overhearing this exchange is Eve. Previously claimed by Adam as a part of him, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and though he led her into hiding—presumably to protect her from impending danger—Eve now hears Adam distance himself by labeling her “the woman” and blaming God for the problematic companion that “you gave to be with me”. This is particularly poignant given Adam’s prior willingness to imbibe the fruit, thereby risking death to stay with her.

In contrast to his three first-order questions for Adam, God’s one and only question to Eve was a second-order question calling for analysis, reflection, or the implications of what she had done. It was a centrifugal and open-ended inquiry requiring more than a “yes-or-no” answer. God already acknowledged He knew that she had done the act by His phrase “you have done”, but His query of “What is this?” elicited the explanation for it.

Analogous incidences of this idiomatic phrase “What is this?” in the book of Genesis demonstrate that it either demands an explanation or rhetorically tries to impress upon the receiver the seriousness of their outrageously offensive action: Gen 12:18 “So Pharaoh called Abram and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?’”(ESV); Gen 26:10 “Abimelech said, ‘What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us’” (ESV); and Gen 44:15 “Joseph said to them, ‘What is this thing that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?” (NASB). When given a chance, Judah, who had no idea how the cup got into Benjamin’s sack, sputtered, “What shall we say to my lord? What words shall we speak? Or how can we justify ourselves?’” Gen 44:16 (NASB). The culpability of the done deed was never in question for it is obvious in every single case to both parties. The reason behind it—“What is this?”—is what is being sought by the questioner. In modern parlance, “What in the world were you thinking when you did this?” may be analogous to “What is this you have done?” for both its questioning and rhetorical effect.

Because Eve responded to God’s question in Genesis 3:13, this implies an expectant pause followed His question. In her case, God was not being rhetorical. How Eve answers in the divine cross-examination lays the foundation for her sentencing in Genesis 3:16.

God: “What is this you have done?”

Eve: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate”.

Note that Eve’s response “the serpent deceived me” resembles Adam’s inappropriate deflection only if God’s question to Eve is ignored. If God’s question is taken seriously, then asking what led to her forbidden action received an appropriate answer—Eve was misled by the snake. Semantically, had Eve answered only “I ate”, that would have been redundant as well as rude to ignore God’s elicitation for why she did it, leaving His question hanging. Only in the theocentric context of God’s question is Eve’s last phrase “I ate” heard as additional self-incrimination. Thus, Eve certainly blamed the snake but without deflecting for she doubled down on emphasizing her personal accountability. Her unnecessary reiteration signals remorse.

To succinctly recap, God’s “yes-or-no” question for Adam was “Have you eaten —?” Adam’s answer of “I ate” was appropriate. Adam’s additional mention of Eve was unnecessary blame-shifting. In response to God’s question for Eve “What is this you have done?”, Eve’s answer of “the snake deceived me” was appropriate. Her last phrase “I ate” was unnecessary self-incrimination. Adam minimized his accountability; Eve emphasized hers. The same phrase holds opposite meanings in the context of the posed question. As in the example of “I do” given above, the meaning of Adam and Eve’s “I ate” is contingent on the question that preceded it. A theocentric hermeneutic privileges divine utterances for grounding meaning and critiques anthropocentric interpretations for focusing on the human answer while ignoring the crucial divine context.

We have seen from the events leading to the divine sentencing of Eve in Gen 3:16 that Adam and Eve are hermeneutical creatures shaped by different life experiences who respond in different ways to the snake’s claims and to God’s questions. Adam possesses greater direct knowledge of God and animals yet knowingly disobeys God by eating the fruit due to his desire for Eve. He led in avoiding God, blaming God, and deflecting blame to Eve, but admitted he ate. Eve’s desire for Adam may have started as less intense, which matches her autonomous deliberations. However, she bonded with her husband through joint suffering only to be unexpectedly betrayed by him in the end. Her answer to God respectfully answered His question before she redundantly self-incriminated. Both await their judgment and sentencing.

5. Gen 3:16. A Redemptive Reading of God’s Sentence on Eve

By the time God sentenced Eve in Genesis 3:16, Eve had been betrayed by every living dimension of her new world: animal, botanical, and human. The cunning serpent, the most intelligent representative of the animal kingdom, betrayed Eve’s trust and her rational deliberations did not protect her. The detrimental effects of imbibing the forbidden fruit were delayed (Gen 3:7) until after both had eaten it, a treacherous trait for beautiful edible plants. Most painfully, Adam’s emotional betrayal of Eve (Gen 3:12) dashed her growing trust in her husband.

From the beginning, Eve had implicitly trusted Adam, who knew God and the world better than herself and who had granted her an identity in relation to himself. Their bond had been deepened by his willingness to share her unknown risk. But Adam proved himself ultimately selfish by reframing her identity as a God-given source of evil to him; they were no longer one flesh in union. When a human being experiences betrayal from multiple independent sources, not only do they learn to distrust their environment and others but their self-confidence in their own rational, sensory, and emotional judgment is shaken. It would not be difficult to imagine Eve experiencing an existential crisis of distrusting everything in her new world, including herself.

Penetrating this new fog of disaffection, God intentionally employs a first-person tone in relating to Eve. If the Principle of Charity is applied to this tone, the possibility of personal hostility is bracketed and the first-person tone can be understood as God offering a direct personal connection to a wounded, now distrustful person. In her hearing, God promised the snake, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). For Eve, this meant that her human logic and reason would not be her only defense against future sophistry, as a God-gifted enmity will empower her moral instincts. Then, God personally promised definitive victory over her adversary through her biological Seed, who would crush or bruise the head of the snake, killing it. From her own body will come the final solution to what she started.

Now turning to address Eve directly in Genesis 3:16, God continues in the first-person voice to reveal her mixed future. God will personally make very great her travails. Travails are not new to Eve anymore, she has suffered betrayal by a snake, she was changed by the fruit, and she was distanced and denigrated by her own husband. As the title of a favorite children’s book says, this day has been a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”! (Viorst 1972) God now unequivocally informs her that life will get much, much worse. This is a very dire vision of her future. Yet the hermeneutical principle of ‘fore-conception of completion’ reminds the reader that God’s words were heard by one who expected immediate death to ensue after eating the fruit (Gen 3:3). Against that expectation, the divine pronouncement of a life of great suffering means she will live a while longer. Suffering and travails require life and time. Difficult as this may be to grasp, the difference is telling a defendant who is expecting immediate execution that their sentence has been transmuted instead to life imprisonment. Yet God’s first-person tone implies more. God’s claim of personal control over her future afflictions38 also implies the possibility of divine mitigation, for if God is in control of the intensity of her future travails, He can affect it. In contrast to Adam’s perfidious deflecting and distancing from Eve, God draws closer and takes full responsibility for the travails that will befall her.

The next item God personally magnifies is Eve’s capacity to conceive (heron).39 God promises assistance in generating children, thus helping Eve fulfill the original command to populate the earth (Gen 1:28) and actualize the solution of the Redeemer-Seed (Gen 3:15). Again, if the ‘fore-conception of completion’ is applied here, since Eve expected only imminent death after imbibing the fruit (Gen 3:3), a promise of increased generativity now moves the time of her death even further away, after many children are born and the family greatly expanded.40 This promise counters the looming finiteness of her existence with the booming generativity of humanity. A personal legacy of living beings replaces the sense of worthlessness and loss of purpose from being disowned by her husband as the other. God replaces what Adam destroyed.

Then, carefully avoiding the term curse and without denigrating her body in any way, God tells her simply and inexplicably that she will beget children in severe painful labor. The previous two elements of generativity and travails are combined in the labor of childbirth. To a woman who has experienced betrayal from animal, botanical, and human realms, God reveals ahead of time that there is yet one more realm of betrayal to come. Her own body will betray her. She will experience incredible anguish right at her body’s greatest achievement of bringing new life into the world. Medical studies have shown two variables that mitigate the agony of labor are knowledge about the pain and a sense of control over it (Lowe 1996). In other words, not knowing why it is happening and feeling completely helpless exacerbate this unique female suffering. Knowing this, the informed reader can hear God’s sentencing of Eve in a different light. Because God tells Eve that childbirth will come with great pain, she will know to expect it, and since God remains in control of her travails, she can appeal to the One in charge of its intensity and trust Him to get her through it. Labor may feel like dying, but it is not death, it is only pain.

Because God informs Eve of both the good and the bad in her future in Gen 3:16, Eve’s desire for wisdom from the tree (Gen 3:6) is being met by God in a bluntly accurate yet personally accountable manner. Other sources of knowledge, such as the snake, the fruit, and Adam, failed her by initially raising her hopes and then disappointing her. But preparing her for what is to come, both the great suffering and the great hope, while taking full responsibility for all of it is conveyed by God’s first-person tone in sentencing. God fulfills Eve’s desire for a trustworthy source of the knowledge of good and evil.

A conjunction then ties the second half of Genesis 3:16 to the first half, connecting God’s promise of divine magnification to her desire toward her husband. It is important to recognize that God never commands Eve to forgive her husband or to re-entrust herself to him blindly, though their marital union is necessary for the promised Redeemer-Seed. Such relational decisions must be voluntary to be effective in marriage. Instead, God targets the one area that is hardest for Eve to overcome on her own, her hurt feelings. Being emotionally betrayed by a partner extinguishes any desire to be with them. It does not make sense to be vulnerable to that person again. God now promises divine assistance toward the genuine forgiveness of her husband, not by granting her amnesia or blunting the sensitivity of her emotions, but by divinely gifting a yearning for Adam: “I will make great … your desire toward your husband”. God discriminatingly heals her emotional pain without infringing on her personal agency.

The last part of Eve’s judgment has been traditionally interpreted as God punishing her by subjugation under Adam’s rulership to preserve marital unity. While it may be true that having Adam rule over Eve (or even having Eve rule over Adam) may preserve a semblance of marital unity, the biblical data has already documented that marital unity in bad decisions comes easily to this couple. Together they ate the fruit, together they realized they were naked, together they sewed loincloths, together they hid, even their final answers are syntactically similar. Indeed, even as a sinful spouse, Eve has shown consistent submissiveness and followed Adam’s lead in every way—except in one critical detail. She does not follow her husband’s example by blaming God or her spouse for her own decisions. As a sinful wife, Eve’s singular incidence of nonconformity to her husband’s lead is morally commendable.

What is rather concerning but overlooked by most readers is her husband’s style of moral leadership as documented in the text. Adam has proven he is fully capable of dragging both of them toward the worst moral decisions a person can make in a marriage: choosing to sin knowingly, avoiding God and leading others to avoid Him, blaming God and blaming His gifts, blaming one’s spouse as a source of evil, and scapegoating the spouse for one’s own bad decisions. Of the fallen pair, Adam is arguably the worst candidate for moral leadership. But Eve started the process and remains flawed as well. She fell first and he fell harder. Both are damaged rulers, and this event is just the beginning of major threats to the unity of their marriage. Placing Adam over Eve as her ruler is not supported by the biblical context as a morally commendable move.

So, what textual indications in God’s sentencing manner can re-direct the interpretative meaning of the final phrase in Genesis 3:16? First, Eve’s sentencing has been shown to be consistently theocentric and mild compared to the other two and this difference may stem from her response in cross-examination. Second, the other two sentences on the snake and Adam started with a curse then both ended with a harkening back to the beginning: good will prevail again and Adam will return to his material origins.

It would be a radical departure from both patterns for God to institute a new (Davidson 2007; Trible 1978)41 fixed sex-based power differential that compromises Eve’s future agency in marriage. Thus, the Principle of Charity, which seeks to avoid self-contradiction in the speaker’s intent and manner, suggests that if there is an interpretive option that upholds the marital unity required to actualize the promised deliverance of Genesis 3:15 and is more consistent with God’s restorative sentencing patterns, it should be preferred (Davidson 1986).42 Such a solution has to be a valid grammatical translation (respects the text) that is gentler (consistent in tone), on the motif of rulership (subject matter), and hinting toward Genesis 1:28 (restorative trajectory), where they were commanded as co-rulers.43

Translating the flexible preposition b^e as with instead of over in the last phrase aligns with the theocentric hermeneutic and retains self-consistency in God’s sentence patterns. Chiding Eve to include her husband in future decisions by saying to her “he must rule with you” is logical and apt at this point in the narrative for multiple reasons. It is (1) a gentle corrective as justified by her repentant demeanor under cross-examination, (2) matches the restorative ending of the other judgments to returning to the original co-ruling model, (3) mitigates ongoing damage to their marital union, (4) furthers the goal of future deterrence by synergizing their hermeneutical strengths, (5) diagnoses the missing resource in her tragic line of decisions44, and (6) works toward marital unity without arbitrary imposed coercion.

A pragmatic excursus on the difference between the model of sex-based power and creative sharing of power may be appropriate here. Marriage in a sinful world is vulnerable to many serious threats. Physical accidents, brain injury, mental illnesses, cognitive and emotional trauma, and age-related dementia affect decision-makers of either gender in all marriages. A fixed sex-linked hierarchy of either gender renders marriage too brittle for unexpected realities and ignores the skills, natural talents, and weaknesses that each partner brings to a marriage, which may also change over time. Alternatives to patriarchy are not limited to matriarchy or anarchy. The translation “he must rule with you” only commands team rulership, with consensual freedom to choose a power structure self-imposed by the pair on themselves. Such a structure can even include the options of patriarchy, matriarchy, or egalitarianism if both partners agree to it. Other models such as taking turns in major decisions, agreeing to wait until a consensus is reached, relegating decisions to areas of recognized competence, temporal shifts of predominance, or mixtures of the above models and more are also possible options. As in the marital area of expressing desire, expression of power in marriage is a place for consensual creativity without denigrating the agency implied by the image of God (Gen 1:27) in both partners.

Additionally, an imposed power structure of one person over another may be efficient for decisions but it is very inefficient to maintain. Subjugating intelligent individuals requires unceasing vigilance with ready punishment because fixed hierarchical power creates its own resistance yet must hold down any opposition. As Michel Foucault notes, “The law always refers to the sword” (Foucault 1978). Even within the patriarchal society reflected in the Bible, women who remained dependent on marriage to their husbands for survival routinely found ways of undermining male authority. Passive-aggressiveness, deception, distractions, and blaming were demonstrated by the matriarchs of the Old Testament: Sarah blames Abraham for Hagar’s disrespectful attitude; Rebecca tricks Isaac with a disguised Jacob; Leah pretends to be Rachel so she can be married to Jacob; Rachel steals her father’s idols without telling her husband and pleads a woman’s excuse to hide them from her father; Tamar disguises herself as a temple prostitute to trick her father-in-law into giving her his seed. Contemporary rhetoric that tries to downplay power differentials in marriage as “first among equals” or “the tie-breaker” reveals the speaker’s obliviousness to the actual consequences when those models are applied to a committee of two, for the results are that one side will get their way one hundred percent of the time and the other only when permitted by the first. In business, the quantifiable edge of complete dominance is even more minimal, for it takes only one percent more voting power than all the rest combined to retain absolute sway. There is no way to avoid power relationships in any human engagement, for power can be simply defined as one action causing another (Foucault 1982). But whether it is between husband and wife, sibling to sibling, parent to child, employer to employee, doctor to patient, or teacher to student, consensual and temporally adjustable models of power are the most sustainable, effective, and least costly structures to maintain.

This section has proposed a new interpretation for God’s sentencing of Eve that ends redemptively by healing her emotionally damaged marriage through gifting increased desire for her husband while chiding Eve to include him in her future decisions, “he must rule with you”. Because Eve will continue to experience pain from her husband’s actions and future children, Eve’s sentence may not be a one-time static pronouncement of life-long sex-based subordination, but instead an everlasting promise from God that He will remain involved in Eve’s increasingly difficult life and marriage as her personal divine healer and counselor, for both now know that her husband will never be perfect again.

6. Genesis 4:7. A Redemptive Re-Reading of māšal b^e for Cain

It has long been recognized that the end of Genesis 4:7 echoes the end of Genesis 3:16, both in sentence structure and by utilizing the same terms for desire and rulership. Interpretive solutions proposed for Genesis 3:16 are often tested by how well they fit Genesis 4:7. But Genesis 4:7 is not as straightforward as Genesis 3:16. “The Talmud says that this verse, Genesis 4:7, is one of five verses in the Bible whose grammatical construction is so unusual that they are very difficult to translate” (Eichhorn 1985). It is a verse characterized by linguistic complexities and interpretive challenges. This final section traces a social-hermeneutical location for Cain that includes Genesis 4:1, addresses the complexity in the verse, and then examines if the solution proposed for Gen 3:16 can also unbind Genesis 4:7.

Since understanding requires harmonizing pertinent particulars to the whole, the degree to which an interpretation can accomplish this reflects the strength of that interpretive proposal. The first two verses of Genesis 4 provide Cain’s given identity, as well as his occupation as a farmer. Just as Eve’s identity was contingent on what Adam told her about her origins (Gen 2:23), it would be natural for Cain’s identity to be contingent on his parents telling him who they think he is (Gen 4:1). Who did they think Cain was? When et is translated consistently as a silent direct object marker throughout verse 1, which starts with “And Adam knew –[et] his wife” and then “she conceived and bore –[et] Cain”, Eve’s proclamation at the end can be heard as ”I have gotten a man—[et] the Lord!” As startling as this possibility sounds, this is a natural reading of the Hebrew grammar, and nothing in Genesis 3:15 precluded the first-time parents Adam and Eve from hoping their first offspring could be the divinely promised messianic Seed (Luther 1904).45 If Cain sincerely believed his mother’s hopes that he was the divine-human who was the promised Seed of the Woman (Doukhan 2016),46 then it would be unnecessary to offer a sacrificial animal symbolizing faith in another future redeemer. A thank-offering of produce alone would be fitting (Gen 4:3). This omission would also be more convenient since he is a farmer and not a shepherd. Thus, allowing a more organic and significant connection between the selective introductory details of the first verse to the ensuing sacrificial scandal is not patently illogical and broadens the scope of possible reasons for Cain’s omission of the sacrificial animal.

If this explanation is contextually plausible by incorporating more of the details of Genesis 4 as functionally coherent and significant, then when YHWH did not regard Cain or his offering favorably (Gen 4:5), Cain could have experienced this response not merely as a dismissal of one offering but more importantly as a divine rejection of his assumed messianic identity. Now, the ensuing depth and intensity of Cain’s reaction, “Cain was very angry and his countenance fell” (Gen 4:5), becomes totally understandable and far more significant. By Genesis 4:7, God may be addressing a shattered young man, not just competitively humbled before his younger brother Abel but existentially bewildered and facing an unknown future.

Into Cain’s whirlwind of resentful dejection comes God’s admonition: “If you do well, will you not be accepted and if you do not do well, hata’at is lying at the door and his desire is for you…” (Gen 4:7). Scholars have long puzzled over how the feminine noun hata’at, which can refer to either sin or sin-offering, can be the referent for the masculine singular pronouns that follow in the rest of the sentence. Three interpretive options can be considered as possible solutions: the traditional interpretation renders the feminine noun hata’at as sin, but it is depicted subsequently as a masculine beast that negatively desires to consume Cain.47 A second option is to render the feminine noun hata’at as the sin-offering and Abel as a nearby masculine entity who will turn toward Cain in respect and honor if he corrects his mistake (Calvin [1578] 2016; Azevedo 1999; Morales 2012).48 This author proposes a third option of the feminine noun hata’at as the sin-offering that is synonymous with YHWH as the immanent masculine entity who desires unity with Cain.

Assuming an Israelite audience for this narrative, the gender discrepancy of the female noun hata’at and the masculine singular entity for the verbs in the rest of the verse creates no issue if hata’at refers to the sin-offering described in Leviticus 4. For in Leviticus 449, the sin-offering hata’at can be fulfilled by a male or female animal and the following pronouns then reflect the gender of the actual animal.50^,51^,52 This biblical paradigm makes sense in Genesis 4:7, where the feminine noun hata’at is synonymous with the masculine entity (male sacrificial animal) that is lying down (robatz) at the door. If the sacrificial offering is accepted as a symbol of substitution and a sign of indication pointing to the messianic Seed of the Woman, it would not be a stretch to connect the first part of the sentence to its ultimate referent of YHWH in the second part of the sentence. This would posit YHWH as the masculine entity that desires Cain. This proposal maintains subject unity within the verse and does not necessitate a figurative detour into folklore demonic metaphors or stepping outside the sentence to grasp Abel.

However, YHWH as a speaker referring to Himself by a third-person pronoun sounds awkward. Though awkward, if illeism, which is self-reference by a third-person pronoun, is a documented characteristic of divine speech, it would be self-consistent to see it in the divine speech of Gen 4:7. There are many instances of divine illeism in the Bible (Elledge 2017) but three examples should suffice to prove this point. In Genesis, God in Genesis 35:1 refers to Himself as ‘the God who appeared to you” in the third person: “God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there and make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau”. In Exodus 34:6–7, YHWH proclaims who He is in the third person: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger”. In the New Testament, Jesus utilizes a third-person pronoun in referring to Himself, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him shall not die but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Given these examples of illeism in divine speech patterns, Genesis 4:7 can be read as: “The sin-offering (sacrificial animal = symbol of YHWH) is lying at the door. His (YHWH’s) desire is for you”. YHWH tells the dejected Cain who feels rejected that instead, he is deeply desired by YHWH.

What is the nature of YHWH’s tešûqāh for Cain? It encompasses the whole scope of this biblically rare term for desire, both the general meaning of turning or returning (Lohr 2011) and later intimations of intimately intense longing. Jewish and Christian traditions have long recognized YHWH’s covenantal relationship as the original model for the intimate marital unity depicted passionately in the Song of Songs. A positive exclusive union fits the marital context of SOS 7:11 and Genesis 3:16 and aligns with Gen 4:7 perfectly if YHWH is the entity desiring Cain. The prevalent option of sin as a figurative malevolent animal renders tešûqāh as dangerously negative and contradictory to the other two verses. The second option of Abel’s desire for Cain dilutes tešûqāh to honor and respect. This third option means that YHWH’s non-acceptance of Cain’s maternally misattributed identity and inadequate ritual is subsumed by YHWH’s tešûqāh to be reconciled and in full spiritual union with Cain. The phrase “his desire (tešûqāh) is for you” seeks to heal the sense of rejection that Cain is struggling with.

The interpretive trajectory initiated with hata’at as sin-offering/YHWH has demonstrated proficiency in elucidating this text grammatically and logically as the subject, but there is one final translation challenge left. Is Cain really to “rule over” YHWH as in “you must rule over [māšal b^e] him”? If the prepositional prefix b^e is translated as “with” as in Genesis 3:16, then the meaning of Genesis 4:7 changes to God inviting Cain to rule collaboratively with Himself: “you must rule with him [YHWH]”. How does YHWH rule? Symbolized by the sacrificial sin-offering lying at the door, God’s style of rulership is characterized by sacrificial service, rather than oppression over others.

In horrific contrast, Cain’s subsequent actions that result in the death of his younger brother (Genesis 4:8) reveal his corrupted human inclination to “rule over” Abel. The apex of “ruling over” another human being is to hold the power of life and death over them, as monarchs historically do. If, as the second proposal of sin-offering/Abel suggests, God informs Cain that he may rule over his younger brother again if he repeats the offering with an animal, this can indulge Cain’s ego and competitive jealousy and turns the performance of a religious ritual into a self-serving method. In contrast, the third interpretive option of sin-offering/YHWH proffers that the command for Cain to rule with God redirects Cain away from ruling over others to focusing on God as his model and collaborative governance partner. This is psychologically more effective and theocentrically transformative as a model for rulership. Again, this interpretation of the ending of Genesis 4:7 is grounded on a shift from an anthropocentric to a theocentric hermeneutic that plumbs the rich grammatical possibilities of the tiny flexible Hebrew preposition, b^e.

In the New Testament, when Jesus came as the promised Seed of the Woman, he starkly contrasted his style of rulership against the world’s hierarchical model in Mark 10:42–44: “So Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their superiors exercise authority over them. But it shall not be this way among you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all.’” In regard to an eschatological vision of eternal power, the New Testament also assures believers who persevere in following the humble way of Jesus that they will eventually rule collaboratively with their beloved divine example, “If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Tim 2:12).

7. Conclusions

Appreciating the translation flexibility of the preposition b^e, which is highly sensitive to context, in Genesis 1:18, Genesis 3:16, and Genesis 4:7 allows a theocentric hermeneutic to bring out fresh redemptive interpretations for famously contentious texts. In Genesis 3:16, when the Hebrew preposition b^e is translated as “with” instead of “over,” a meaning well within its grammatical scope, the ending of Eve’s sentencing is heard as God healing Eve’s wounded marriage and chiding her to include Adam in her future decisions: “I will make great … your desire for your husband and he must rule with you”. This redemptive reading aligns with the objectively milder character of Eve’s sentence compared to the other two sentences, reflects the findings from Eve’s cross-examination, illuminates Eve’s social-hermeneutical location, diagnostically pinpoints the ready resource she neglected in her critical decision, works toward restoring the original model of co-rulership, and fosters marital unity without requiring a life-long sex-based power differential in marriage.

When the same translation of b^e as “with” is considered for Genesis 4:7, it is even more overtly redemptive. If hata’at is the sin-offering with YHWH as the indicated referent for the pronouns that follow in the verse, the last phrase can be heard as “his [YHWH’s] desire is for you and you must rule with him [YHWH]”. Such a reading is grammatically sound and contextually coherent while directly addressing the rejection that caused Cain’s angry depression. In short, God is reassuring Cain that though his inadequate sacrifice and the issues it represents are not correct, God still passionately desires to be reconciled and in full spiritual union with Cain. Furthermore, God affirms Cain was created to be a ruler and should rule—but in righteous collaboration with God, whose style of sacrificial rulership was prefigured by the animal absent from Cain’s offering.