Genesis 3:17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field ; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken ; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
With the serpent’s curse and Eve’s consequences behind, God turns to Adam to tell him the result of his disobedience.
But before examining a consequence it’s important to understand its cause. Adam’s sin-consequences had two causes (V.17):
CAUSE #1: Adam listened to his wife
CAUSE #2: Adam disobeyed God’s command
Let’s look at these individually.
CAUSE #1: ADAM LISTENED TO HIS WIFE: “
BECAUSE YOU LISTENED TO THE VOICE OF YOUR WIFE…”
To some, this seems like a statement about men following their wives’ leads. It seems more likely, however, to be about whose voice you listen to – God’s or ANYone else’s. After all, other than the serpent, Eve was the only other person in the world that Adam COULD have chosen to listen to instead of God.
God is condemning Adam for listening to anyone’s voice than His.
God also seems to be responding to Adam’s excuse in v.12, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree.” God responds, in essence, “The woman I gave you may have given you the fruit, but it was your choice to listen to her voice over Mine. Her temptation didn’t cause your sin. Eating was your choice, your action, your guilt.”
CAUSE #2: ADAM DISOBEYED GOD’S COMMAND: “
…AND HAVE EATEN FROM THE TREE ABOUT WHICH I COMMANDED YOU, SAYING, 'YOU SHALL NOT EAT FROM IT'”
Some sins are done in ignorance. But even those are unholy and therefore sinful. For example, Leviticus 24:27-29 says, “'Now if anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and becomes guilty, if his sin which he has committed is made known to him, then he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without defect, for his sin which he has committed. 'He shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slay the sin offering at the place of the burnt offering.”
In Eden’s garden, however, Adam did not sin out of ignorance. His sin was deliberate. He knew he was disobeying God’s command. He even knew the consequences of his disobedience (“you will die”).
There’s an important difference between Adam’s consequences and those that the serpent and Eve experienced.
Their consequences directly affected only them (Crawl on your belly, eat dust, crushed head; pain in childbirth, desire for husband, he will rule over you).
But Adam’s consequences were much larger – they affected the entire world.
There were three. Here they are:
CONSEQUENCE #1: THE GROUND IS CURSED (V.17)I believe Adam’s and Eve’s bodies changed as a result of sin. I believe there is strong support for this throughout scripture. I’d be happy to take a crack at supporting this belief during our comments week if asked.
I wrote my thesis in grad school on this very thing entitled “The Somatic Nature of Man in the Three Dispensations of Grace: A Theological Experiment.” I’ll give you a moment to quit yawning at the title, then I’ll briefly summarize the point of the paper. It goes something like this: Adam and Eve were created with bodies that would not decompose or die. They were “atemporal” – i.e., not bound by time – because there was no death or wearing down. That suggests that their created bodies were different than our bodies today.
When sin entered into the world, death and decay also entered, and their bodies changed to accommodate it. Further, I believe the incorruptible bodies they originally had were like the ones we will one day have when the last enemy – death – is destroyed and Jesus, “
by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (
Philippians 3:21)
Assuming my thesis is correct, the ground from which Adam had been taken would have to have changed, too, especially because he would return to it now. He was formed from incorruptible dust; he would return to the corruptible dust of a cursed ground. That is the opposite of what will happen when our salvation is complete: “
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.” (
1 Corinthians 15:42)
The Bible is loaded with references to the cursed ground. For example:
- “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.” (Genesis 4:11)
- “Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed” (Genesis 5:29).
- “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:19-23)
CONSEQUENCE #2: HE WILL EAT THE PRODUCE OF THE CURSED GROUND (vv.17-18)There’s another subtle allusion here to our first parents’ original vegetarian diet (
“And you will eat the plants of the field”). Adam’s means of survival would be different. No longer would God lavish upon him all that he needed. Adam would no longer merely "care for" the garden (2:15). He would now eat from it through "toil." The cursed ground would become difficult, and it would require difficult labor to produce food (vv.17-19) in contrast to in 2:15 where Adam was placed in the garden to merely “cultivate it and keep it.”
After his sin, and with a ground that was now cursed, Adam would toil in the garden, “
by the sweat of your face.” The ground would no longer serve Adam; he would now serve the ground.
Side Note:
A brief observation about the word “bread” in v.19. The Hebrew word is lechem (לֶ֔חֶם). It most often does mean “bread.” But it is frequently used in the Bible to refer to food of any type. Some examples are Leviticus 21:8 and 17, where it clearly refers to sacrificial meat, and Jeremiah 11:19 where it clearly refers to the fruit of a tree. Kind of reminds me of “give us this day our daily bread,” which we all understand to not be limited to bread proper.CONSEQUENCE #3: HE WILL RETURN TO DUST – OUT OF WHICH HE WAS FORMED (v.19)Note that in 2:7, “
the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the Spirit of life; and man became a living being.” Without the breath (Spirit) of God, Adam was just dust. Because of his sin, Adam would lose the divine Spirit within him that made him live.
Man was made from dust (nothing) to rule over creation (everything). Now he will go back to being nothing.
As the Psalmist wrote in
Psalm 104:29-30:
“
You hide Your face, they are dismayed ;
You take away their spirit, they expire and return to their dust.
You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the ground.”
20 “Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.”
Realizing that Eve would now be the one who reproduced, Adam changed her name.
Back in 2:23, Eve’s existence was tied to Adam so he named her '
ishshah (woman) because she was taken out of man ('
iysh).
Eve’s existence after the curse was associated with another purpose. She was now the one through whom the human race would either survive or die out altogether. She was the conveyor of God’s grace of reproduction. So Adam drew on his wife’s significance as the mother of all living and gave her a name consistent with this role.
Her name was now "Eve," which in Hebrew means "life."
