To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You will bear children in pain. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 16. And thy conceptions. Septuagint “thy groaning.” The multifarious sorrows of childbearing, must remind all mothers (the blessed Virgin alone excepted) of what they have incurred by original sin. If that had not taken place, they would have conceived with out concupiscence, and brought forth without sorrow. Saint Augustine Calmet. D. xiv. 26.—Conceptions are multiplied on account of the many untimely deaths, in our fallen state. Power, which will sometimes be exercised with rigor. Bible.—Moses here shews the original and natural subjection of wives to their husbands, in opposition to the Egyptians, who, to honour Isis, gave women the superiority by the marriage contract. Diod. i. 2. Calmet.