11 And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?12 And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat.13 And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. 14 And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
16 To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.17 And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thoueat thereof all the days of thy life.
18Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth.19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.20 And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.
Context: The Catechism (410-411) says: “This passage in Genesis is called the Proto-evangelium (‘first gospel’): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers…many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the Protoevangelium as Mary, the mother of Christ, the ‘new Eve’.”
Translation: Many of the words in this passage are not seen in much of the rest of the Bible. For example, the word for desire, is found in Genesis 3:15, 3:16 and 4:7, and Song of Songs 7:11. That’s it. So, it is language set apart, describing our primordial parents.
The word, “cursed” (ārur – see below) is a wordplay based on the first verse in Chapter 3, “Now the serpent was more “shrewd” (ʿārûm) And, the word “cursed” has comparative qualities to the words after it. So, when the serpent is cursed, he is separated from all the other animals. But, when the word is used again with respect to Adam’s punishment, the earth is cursed with respect to his toil. But Adam is not cursed, because God loves all of us, men and women, despite our sins.
The phrase, “and earth you shall eat” from Gen. 3:14 was a Hebrew idiom that meant, “vanquished by a foe.” And, indeed, when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he conquered sin and death, exactly as this scripture foretells.
Vocabulary (Hebrew):
Deceived– nâshâʼ: to lead astray, to seduce (also translated as “beguiled”)
Cursed– ‘ārur: punished, banished.
Crush– šûp̄: to bruise, crush, break, cover
Sorrows– ʿiṣṣāḇôn: pain, labor, hardship, sorrow, toil (increase in hardships)
Desire– təšûqâ: desire, longing, craving, between men and women
Meditation: God interacts first with Adam and Eve, getting the facts straight, so to speak. Adam points to Eve, and blames God for giving her to him. Eve points to the serpent. But God doesn’t punish Adam and Eve first. He starts with the serpent, who is shown to be the author of Original Sin.
God doesn’t tell the serpent that his battle will be with Adam, but rather with the woman. Why doesn’t God tell the serpent to fear Adam? The enmity is real. Women often have a stronger awareness of the presence of sin and the effect that it has on people and communities. And consider that Mary has been invoked continually to stop or reverse evil in human history!
In Mulieris Dignitatem, Saint John Paul the Great says, “The overcoming of this evil inheritance is, generation after generation, the task of every human being, whether woman or man.” Together, all men and all women are called to recover our inherent goodness.
Closeup of the serpent in the Tiepolo’s Immaculate Conception.
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Volume Three of My Secret is Mine newsletter includes essays and discussions on Mulieris Dignitatem, On the Dignity and Vocation of Women, an apostolic letter written by St. John Paul the Great in 1988.
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Genevieve Kineke interviews Jenny duBay on domestic abuse and trauma-informed healing. With links to purchase Ms. duBay's book on healing...(read more)
