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Song of Solomon 7 · a question people ask

"His desire is toward me" (7:10). Is this the same word as in Genesis 3:16?

In the text

Yes. Desire here is teshuqah (tap desire), and the Hebrew Bible has it only three times: "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Genesis 3:16), "Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it" (Genesis 4:7), and here, "His desire is toward me" (7:10). Genesis 3's word study sets the three verses side by side, and Genesis 3's honest question gives the main ways Christians read Genesis 3:16; one of them weighs this verse. This chapter doesn't answer that question. It says what 7:10 says, and these notes don't offer 7:10 as a key to Genesis 3:16.

The verses

“I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me.”
Song of Solomon 7:10 · World English Bible
“To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You will bear children in pain. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.””
Genesis 3:16 · World English Bible
“If you do well, won’t it be lifted up? If you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it.””
Genesis 4:7 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Song of Solomon 7

Song of Solomon 7: His desire is toward me

The saying of 2:16 and 6:3 comes a third time in 7:10, and this time it goes on, "His desire is toward me". That word, teshuqah, is in the Hebrew Bible only there and in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. And the call to come, said to a woman in 2:10 and 2:13, is said to a man in 7:11: "Come, my beloved!"

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions