Sin and Consequences Gen 3:14-16 (part 1)

We went from Adam to Eve to the serpent. Now we will go from the serpent to Eve to Adam.

Notice that no questions are asked of the serpent. The serpent is not afforded an opportunity to account for its actions. Why not? Honestly, I don't know. Any answers we come up with will be purely speculative.

And the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Gen 3:14-15

For its actions, the serpent is cursed. Cursed above all animals, wild and domestic. It has to crawl on its belly. This mention of crawling has led some to believe that the serpent used to walk upright but now is reduced to crawling on its belly. Eh. Seems rather fanciful to me. "Eat dust." I dunno if there are any lessons to be learned from this. :) Enmity between serpents and women and between children and serpents is predicted. Now, there are many who see Messianic overtones in these verses.

1 "your offspring and hers", meaning the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. But men are the ones who have seed. What woman would have seed without a man? Mary, the mother of Christ.

2 "crush your head...strike his heel." Foreshadowing the battle between Christ and the dragon in Revelation.

The senior rabbi at shul has seen these verses as an etiological story (story meant to explain why things are as they are). People and serpents do not get along (mostly). Serpents naturally strike at people's heels since both are low to the ground. And people attempt to smash serpents' heads. Genesis is a book full of beginnings. And here we see the beginnings of the enmity between people and snakes.

To the woman he said,"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Gen 3:16

increase? Could it have been that Eve previously conceived and bore children with little or no pain? It has been suggested by my rabbi at shul that there was no sex, no birth and no death in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Hmmmm....Seems plausible enough, but depending on how you interpret the word "increase", it could be argued that there was at least sex and birth before this sin.

Nevertheless, from now on, labor will be difficult and painful. I would bet dollars to donuts that any woman who has delivered a baby will tell you that labor is called labor because it is painful and difficult. Goshness, I hope the wife and Junior make it through the delivery as smoothly as possible with no complications and with as little discomfort as possible even though God decreed that childbirth would be painful.

Furthermore, why is this decreed upon the woman for having eaten from the Tree? How does the "punishment" (if it can be called that) fit the crime?

I put punishment in quotation marks. Notice that the word "curse" is not mentioned in regards to Eve. The serpent is cursed. Eve is not cursed. But should this be called a blessing then? I don't think we can say that either. What shall we say then? It's a consequence for her actions.

What did Eve do? She saw that the fruit was a delight to the eyes, and good for food and desirable as a source of wisdom. I wonder if there is any relation to childbirth. Children are the fruit of the womb. They are also called the apple of their parents' eyes. Children are not food but they eat the same food as the mother while in the womb. And children are often great teachers opening up our eyes to things we never thought of or seeing things in a completely different way. So, perhaps in this way childbirth relates to the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. But why increase the pain of childbirth? And why must it be carried from generation to generation? Every woman since Eve who has ever delivered a baby can tell you of the pains of childbirth. For these last two questions, I'm not entirely sure.

Maybe, because sin is so often easy, the consequence must be harsh to teach us not to sin again? But that doesn't answer why every woman who has gone through labor since Eve has had to deal with it being painful. And for that, I don't have an answer. Maybe others more learned than I have some insights or suggestions.