Genesis 17:15-16
2007.May.11 03:11
The Curse of Pain in Labor
Read Genesis 17:15-16 | Full Chapter
And God saith unto Abraham, ‘Sarai thy wife – thou dost not call her name Sarai, for Sarah [is] her name; and I have blessed her, and have also given to thee a son from her; and I have blessed her, and she hath become nations – kings of peoples are from her.’
(Genesis 17:15-16, Young)
About a year ago now, I looked at the curse of pain in labor, part of the post-lapsum curse placed on Eve, and apparently, women in general. Sarai’s life has included another twist. She has had no children and seems to desire some. After all, she proposed that her husband sleep with her slave, for that purpose. She is removed from the curse of pain in labor, but only because she is removed from a blessing she desires, due to no apparent fault of her own.
God wants to free us from the curses of sin, but not through removing us from blessings. He has another plan for Sarai, and so he changes her name from a name of non-blessing and possibly cursing (she’s had a rough few years here), to a name of blessing. But look at how God says this (both above, and here, in the CEV:
I will bless her, and you will have a son by her. Jehovah doesn’t just say that Sarah will have a child, but first that God will bless her.
Jehovah flip-flops the curse. Sarai may have seen herself as double curse, but now God gives her a new name with a double blessing, a general blessing throughout her life and a specific blessing of the child for which she has longed. That her descendants will be numerous and powerful is another layer to the cake. And this is not Abraham’s descendants that happen to also be Sarah’s, but God states that Sarah herself has “become nations – kings of people are from her.”
Now, I don’t know if Sarah had particular pain in childbirth. But I do know that God can take a overflowing of curses and change from them to an abundance of blessings.
