Description: In this lesson, we began studying YHWH God's judgment of the woman. We compared God's judgment of the woman to his judgments of the serpent and the man, highlighting two major differences (e.g., the absence of a curse). We also covered the first of two punishments targeting respectively her role a helper/mother, in the first instance, and her relationship with her husband, in the second.

One additional note: We addressed a couple synonymous Hebrew words that describe the woman's condition in childbearing as a result of God's punishment, which many modern translations translate as "pain" or a near equivalent (Gen 3:16). We argued that although it is true that she will indeed experience "pain" in childbearing, this description fails to adequately convey the full nature, intensity, and extent of her punishment. Now, after YHWH God's judgment of the woman, the blessing of motherhood will not come easily but only with hard, difficult, painful, strenuous labor (or travail). We studied all three occurrences of the first Hebrew word 'itzavon ("toil" / "painful toil") all three of which occur in the book of Genesis (Gen 3:16, 17; 5:29). The second Hebrew word 'etzev ("hard labor") occurs a total of six times (Gen 3:16; Psalm 127:2; Prov 5:10; 10:22; 14:23; 15:1).