Canonical Mondays - Listening to a Woman's Voice: Intrinsically Bad?
Recently on #CanonicalMondays we covered two narratives that showed a wife telling her husband what to do and the results were DISASTROUS.
First, we look back to Genesis 3:
God, in judging Adam, condemns him for listening to the voice of his wife.
17And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife (כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ)
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you…
When reading just this verse, or just Genesis 3, it could appear that a man should not listen to his wife. It could appear that it’s not a woman’s place to instruct her husband. It could appear that that is not her role.
Adam’s wife led him astray—but was it because she’s a woman? Or was it because the content of her words (unrelated to her gender) were foolish?
This is the point I want to develop: the problem in Genesis 3 is that Eve’s voice tells Adam something that is in opposition to what God has told the man to do (or what not to do). Her words and instruction were foolish, opposed to the wisdom and knowledge of God.
Second, we look again to Sarai and Abram in Genesis 16:
God has promised a son to Abram (Gen. 15), but Sarai is impatient and distrusts God. Seeing that she is still childless, she takes and gives her Egyptian slave to Abram in order to build a family for herself.
Genesis 16:2 says “And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai (וַיִּשְׁמַע אַבְרָם לְקוֹל שָׂרָֽי).” This is the same phrase used back in Genesis 3:17 and is a signal to the reader to sit up and pay attention! Something big is about to happen.
And indeed, sit up and pay attention because here in Genesis 15 and 16 there is a similar patter to Genesis 2 and 3. God has told the man something (a command in chp. 2; a promise in chp. 15) and then in the next chapter (chp. 3; chp. 16), the man’s wife does something which contradicts what God had just said.
God tells Adam not to eat from the tree, then the wife gives fruit from the tree to the man and he eats.
God tells Abram that He will give him a son, and then his wife decides to create a family for them by her own means. And Abram goes along with her plan instead.
Both narratives lead to pain and exile.
Now I know Sarai here in Genesis 16 doesn’t help my case. With both Sarai and Eve it could appear that wives are prone to coming up with bad, God-contradicting plans!
So let’s look a few chapters later in the story of Abraham and Sarah and see if listening to women is problematic in and of itself, or if there’s a different answer.
We see the same pattern: God gives the man a blessing. And then in a subsequent scene, a wife tells a man to do something. This time, the results are different. This time the woman’s words to the man align with God’s blessing to the man.
Let’s look at what God said in Gen. 17:
18Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” 19 God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you… 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
Let’s look at what Sarah says to her husband in Gen. 21:
10 So [Sarah] said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham…In all that Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice(שְׁמַע בְּקֹלָהּ), for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
This is the same content: no to Ishmael, yes to Isaac! And when Abraham is saddened by this instruction, and is perhaps hesitant to follow through, God doesn’t say, hey Abe, that’s what I already told you. No! God instead says, do all that she says and listen to the voice of your wife (same phrase as Gen 3:17 and ).
Listening to women isn’t a problem. It wasn’t wrong for a man to listen to a woman because she is in some way inferior or without the right to do so.
The content of a wife’s (or sister’s or mother’s; or husband’s, father’s, or brother’s) words is what one must judge by. Is she speaking wisdom or folly (Prov. 1)?
There’s a lot of women in the Old Testament that tell men what do and it brings life and speaks of wisdom and faith. So next week we’ll take a look at Abigail in 1 Sam 25 and see how her words bring life to the women who listens to it.