Cain sat, slumped with anger etched onto his face. God approached Cain and asked him a question, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you and you will rule over it” (Genesis 4:6–7, my translation).
But Cain gets up, speaks to his brother, and when they’re in the field, Cain rises up against his brother Abel and killed him (Genesis 4:8).
Towards the end of last year, I had the privilege of reconnecting with my old Hebrew professor, Dr. Jesse Scheumann. Jesse instilled into me a love of the Hebrew language. Whenever I find something in the Hebrew Bible that is interesting, I can’t help but get nerdy and Jesse is a huge Bible nerd. So, strap in, dear reader, we’re about to get nerdy! (And, I promise, this all will lead us to the nature of sin and temptation soon) While we were on our video call, he brought up something fascinating to me. What does Genesis 3:16 mean? Here’s how the ESV translates it, “To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he will rule over you.” It’s a confusing verse. And the confusion only gets stronger when you realize that the exact same language is being used by God when he speaks to Cain in Genesis 4, translated by the ESV, speaking about sin, as “Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
Now, on first reading, Genesis 4 makes sense. Sin has a desire that is contrary to us. We do need to rule over sin if we’re going to do well. But Eve’s story doesn’t seem to make sense, at least to me. The ESV’s translation seems to imply that womankind is doomed to have desires that are contrary to their husbands. And, as we look at what the Hebrew says, it’s a leap to say that her desire is contrary to her husband’s. In fact, in both Genesis 3 and 4, the preposition just means “to.” Your desire will be to your husband. Sin’s desire is to you. You could also translate this as “for.” And here’s where things got really interesting in my conversation with Jesse. He pointed out that the word for “desire” is not normally used in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, it’s used here, in Genesis 3 and 4 and one other place, Song of Songs 7:10, where the bride says “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”
Now, if you know anything about Song of Songs (or “Song of Solomon”), you know that it’s a book that celebrates the love and intimacy of marriage, particularly marital, physical intimacy. So, the desire of the bride’s husband is for her. It’s a desire that is good and proper for a spouse to have for their beloved, if you catch my meaning. So, a better understanding of Genesis 3 is that Eve would have such a (good) desire for her husband. And that Adam would “rule over her.” Here, Jesse told me that he believes that this is a euphemism for providing children to Eve (based off of his understanding of Genesis 1:18 and how the sun and the moon rule by providing light in their respective times of day/night). I think that this reading of Genesis 3:16 makes total sense of the Hebrew in context.
So what does all this mean for Cain? Instead of reading Genesis 4 as if Cain is being stalked by some predatory animal that wants to devour him and he must rule over it if he’s to survive, sin is being portrayed as a person and a person who wants him, if you catch my meaning. God is not saying that he must rule over sin, but that if he doesn’t do well, Cain will rule over it in the same way that Adam would provide children to Eve.
In other words, if Cain doesn’t do well, sin will have a desire for him. If he doesn’t refuse it, this desire will conceive. And sin, when it’s fully grown, will bring the death of Cain’s brother, Abel.
James tells us that this is exactly how sin works in us in James 1:14, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
When our desires bring us to sin’s doorstep, there’s always a promise: sin will take away the pain, sin will heal you, sin will make life good for you. Our desire is to live free of pain. Our desire is to be healed. Our desire is to have a good life. It’s not that these desires are wrong or evil— of course we would want those things! It’s just that we bring our desire to the wrong place. And when desire conceives in this way, it gives birth to the sin itself. For so many, we realize immediately that what sin promised us has not been delivered. Instead of finding healing, wholeness, and good, we find pain, shame, brokenness, and guilt. And when this sin grows up, it brings death. In Cain’s case, it brought the death of his brother. Make no mistake, sin and its consequences will not just be contained to you; it will bring death to the people around us. It always does.
So what should we do? Instead of taking our desires to sin’s doorstep, we must take our desires to God because “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:16). Do you want healing from the pain of the past? Our Father has a good and perfect gift for you that brings healing. Do you want the pain to go away? He gives generously to all without finding fault. Do you want a good life? He has come that you might have life and have it abundantly. Of course you would want these things. God does not shame you for wanting what you want. Bring your desires to Him. As you ask, and seek, and knock, and come to Him, you will find that sin’s promises are a lie. You may also find that you are so filled up with God’s love that you’re no longer hungry for the sin that desires to have you.
May God fill us all with such love.
