Did God Cause Labor Pains When He Cursed Eve in Genesis?

John H. Walton offers an interesting explanation

Last time, I posted about God's curse directed at Adam. This time, we'll look at the one directed towards Eve.

Here is the Scripture in question:

Genesis 3:16a
To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children."

In "Pain in Childbearing", John H. Walton writes about the noun translated “pains” [in childbearing] used in that verse:

What is important to note about this profile is that the root is not typically used to target physical pain, but mental or psychological anguish (though physical pain may accompany or be the root cause of the anguish). This is actually quite helpful, because despite NIV’s translation, “childbearing”, the Hebrew word in this first line is specifically concerned with conception, not with giving birth. Interpreters have understandably had trouble working out how conception is painful.

In ancient cultures, the ability to get pregnant was a major status issue. The anxiety about conception fits thematically well with the rest of Genesis. The stories of Sarah and Rachel deal with their inability to get pregnant. As I explained in my post on Adam, this all has to do with countering the idea that God was not a god of fertility. The author of Genesis shows that God can open wombs even at Sarah's age.

Looking at the larger picture of Genesis 3, we see that Adam and Eve violated God's law in the Garden of Eden - a place of great fertility. He then curses in a way that effects Adam and Eve regarding fertility: The land for Adam and the womb or Eve.

John H. Walton suggests a different translation of the verse:

The resulting paraphrase would be “I will greatly increase the anguish you will experience in the birth process, from the anxiety surrounding conception to the strenuous work of giving birth.” This cannot be viewed as an imposition of labor pains.

Regardless, the existence of labor pains still effects women today... but does it have to? I'll briefly write about that in my next post.