Genesis 3:16-20·~1 min
The Punishment of Mankind
The woman is told of multiplied pain and the altered terms of her relation to her husband. Adam hears that the ground is cursed because of him, and life from now on will come through toil, thorns, sweat, and a return to dust.
T16o the woman He said: 17And to Adam He said: 18Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, 19By the sweat of your brow
Adam names his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.
20And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living.
Section summaryThe woman's pain and the man's toil are named as the new conditions of human life beyond Eden. Desire, labor, thorns, sweat, and death now shape the ground of ordinary existence, yet the chapter still names the woman as mother of the living.
Role in the chapterThis section widens judgment from the serpent to human life itself. It explains why fruitfulness, work, and mortality now belong together in the world outside the garden.