Rather, late with this but I just wanted to note that we did meet last Wednesday to study the Word and to pray. We had a good attendance and plenty of prayers. We looked at the Tree of life this time, having looked at the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil the previous week. That was uncontroversial but we went slightly of topic as we had read from Genesis 3 on Sunday and I had commented on the phrase I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children. Someone wanted to disagree with my understanding of that, which is to take it more broadly as in Barnes' comments below. (I think the problem was that I underplayed the pain of actually giving birth).
"Sorrow is to be multiplied in her pregnancy, and is also to accompany the bearing of children. This sorrow seems to extend to all the mother's pains and anxieties concerning her offspring. With what solicitude she would long for a manifestation of right feeling toward the merciful God in her children, similar to what she had experienced in her own breast! What unutterable bitterness of spirit would she feel when the fruits of disobedience would discover themselves in her little ones, and in some of them, perhaps, gather strength from year to year!"
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