# Puritan Interpretation Genesis 3:16



## BGF (Sep 12, 2016)

This recent thread on the ESV permanent edition leads me to ask, what were the most common Puritan interpretations of Genesis 3:16?


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## Romans922 (Sep 12, 2016)

http://heidelblog.net/2016/09/a-chr...of-some-english-translations-of-genesis-316b/


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## BGF (Sep 12, 2016)

Romans922 said:


> http://heidelblog.net/2016/09/a-chr...of-some-english-translations-of-genesis-316b/



Very interesting. I can see how translation might influence interpretation but do any puritans have any lengthy expositions of this passage?


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## arapahoepark (Sep 12, 2016)

I actually did some reading of Gill, Calvin and Poole on this when I saw the post. They believed that the saying "and your desire will be for your husband" was basically to be back to the status quo (husband is head before the fall) since Eve had basically turned it around and mankind thus fell into sin. In other words no battle of the sexes is explicitly said in the curse though it comes about do to sin and the curse as does everything else...

So much for the ESV being a literal translation.


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 12, 2016)

John White has a folio volume on the first three chapters of Genesis, published after his death in 1656. If prdl is accurate, it is not online for free, though I'm sure it is available on EEBO at any university. They have not put it in text online but the table of contents is here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A65748.0001.001?view=toc You might check Trapp.


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## johnny (Sep 12, 2016)

I am still trying to find my take of this passage among the puritans. I have always seen one aspect of this scripture in how women are intensely interested In what men are thinking and men's opinions of things. They also seem to look towards men for approval and to qualify their own statements. This interest doesn't necessarily mean they agree with men's positions. They are just interested in them and that's how I see this scripture.

Does anyone else get that sense from it?


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## BGF (Sep 13, 2016)

This from Andrew Willet.



> Thirdly, where it is said, the womans desire shall bee to her husband, and he shall rule over her: 1. It is not understood of the naturall desire the woman hath eftsoone of her husbands company, notwithstanding her painfull travaile, which is no punishment but a delight unto them: 2. But of that subjection, whereby by the law of nature practised among Pagans, women doe de∣pend upon their husbands. The woman should before have beene obedient to man, but of a loving society to be made partaker of all his counsells, nor of an urging necessity as now: whereby the woman in respect of her weaknesse, both with her will dependeth of her husband, for her direction and provision of things necessary, and against her will she often endureth the hard yoke of an unequall commander.



Here Willet speaks of woman being subject to her husband prior to the fall, but the nature of the subjugation now being of a different quality. The change was not one of equality to inequality, but of loving cooperation between the wife and her head (husband)to the subjugation closer to that of a servant to a master.


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