We’re delighted that Dennis Preato, MDiv, a new friend of Empower, has generously offered to share some of his excellent work on gender equality with us for our resource page.
We wanted to share just a short excerpt from his paper which explores Genesis 1 -3.
In Genesis 3:16, God tells the woman: Your desire (teshuqah) will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
But has this Hebrew word, teshuqah, been properly translated? Here is just a short section of Dennis Preato’s paper that explores this question:
What Does Teshuqah Actually Mean: Desire or Turning?
The Hebrew word transliterated as teshuqah appears only three times in the Old Testament: in Genesis 3:16, in Genesis 4:7 and in Song of Solomon 7:10.
The Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, translates this word as “turning” and not “desire.” In addition, the other ancient versions (the Syriac Peshitta, Samaritan Pentateuch, Old Latin, Sahidic, Bohairic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Aquila’s Greek, Symmachus’s Greek, Theodotion’s Greek and the Latin Vulgate) translates teshuqah as “turning,” not “desire” the majority of the time.
Additionally, the church fathers including Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Epiphanius and Jerome, along with Philo, a Jew who died about A.D. 50, were not aware of any other sense for this word other than the translation of “turning.”
According to the Hebrew text this verse reads: “You are turning away [from God!] to your husband, and [as a result] he will rule over you [take advantage of you].” (Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce and Manfred T. Brauch, Hard Sayings of the Bible, (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996), 97.)
Notice this passage is descriptive and not prescriptive. “He will” is in the simple future tense describing what will happen, and not in the imperative mood, meaning he must or he shall. God is simply describing the result of sin and not how relationships were originally intended to function.
Katherine Bushnell’s extensive research on Genesis 3:16 and in particular on the Hebrew word teshuqa reveals the intended meaning of this passage. Bushnell, an outstanding Hebrew scholar, renders the verse as “Thou art turning away to thy husband, and he will rule over thee,” meaning “Eve is turning away from God to her husband, and, as a consequence of that deflection, Adam will rule over her.” Katherine C. Bushnell, God’s Word To Women, (North Collins, N.Y: Ray B. Munson, 1923)
Bushnell’s translation of the Hebrew agrees with that of Chyrsostom’s Greek translation, which states that for the future “thy turning shall be to thy husband.” (Chrysostom, “Homily XXVI”)
The subordination of woman resulted from the Fall (v. 16). And it was only after the Fall that man actually named her Eve (Gen 3: 20).
Be sure to visit our “Articles” page to read the complete paper “Gender Equality is God’s Original Design Refuting Complementarian Claims.”