Daily Verse Daily Verse by Faithlife | Genesis 3:19
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3:19 to dust you shall return The consequences of sin include lifelong toil. This line could be understood as indicating that only death is the release from that curse of toil, or that natural death may be another consequence of sin (compare Rom 5:12). It is unclear whether natural death existed prior to Adam and Eve’s sin—whether in Eden or elsewhere (see note on Gen 3:22; note on 6:3).
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ge 3:19). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ge 3:19). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
3:19 The simple plucking of fruit in order to eat food (lit “bread”) would now be replaced by backbreaking labor and the sweat of the brow. Working daily in the soil, Adam would be continually reminded that he was dust and that he would return to dust.
Bergen, R. D. (2017). Genesis. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 11). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
Bergen, R. D. (2017). Genesis. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 11). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
19 “By the sweat of your brow.” Work itself is not a punishment for sin. Man was placed in the garden to cultivate it (2:15). Rather it was the hardship and frustration that attended work that constitutes the curse. “As for man, his punishment consists in the hardship and skimpiness of his livelihood, which he must now seek for himself. The woman’s punishment struck at the deepest root of her being as wife and mother; the man’s strikes at the innermost nerve of his life: his work, his activity, and provision for sustenance” (von Rad, 93–94).
“Until you return to the land from which you were taken for you are dust.” Here much of the phraseology of man’s creation is picked up. Man was “shaped from the dust of the land” (2:7); now he must return to dust. Woman was taken out of man (2:23) as man was taken from the ground (3:19). Man’s lifelong struggle for survival will eventually end in death. Most commentators have taken this curse as confirmation of the death-threat announced in 2:17 on those who eat of the forbidden tree. However, some have disputed this (notably Skinner and Westermann, and more guardedly, Gunkel and Jacob). They argue that the parallels between this verse (3:19) and 2:7 suggest that death is “part of the natural order of things—the inevitable ‘return’ of man to the ground whence he was taken” (Skinner, 83). They point out that the story does not say man would have lived forever if he had not eaten. “Death is therefore not punishment for man’s transgression; it is the limitation of the toil of human work” (Westermann, 1:363; cf. ET 267).
While commentators must always seek to free themselves from their own dogmatic prejudices in recovering the original sense of the text, it is doubtful whether Skinner and Westermann are justified in this instance. Though there are close parallels between 2:7 and 3:19, the omissions are significant, most obviously the absence of any mention of the breath of life which had made man a living creature. Furthermore, the curse has already mentioned a change in man’s feeding arrangements, suggesting that he would no longer enjoy access to the tree of life. Finally, and most decisively, the sentence on man is introduced in v 17 by an exact though incomplete quotation of the original prohibition not to eat of the tree of knowledge (2:17).
The narrator, who according to Westermann added 3:17a to the older curse formulae, must have expected the listener to complete the quotation of 2:17 and to be looking for a confirmation of the threat of death in the curses. But he holds this back to v 19, when at last man is explicitly told that he will return to the land: “for you are dust and to dust you must return,” a remark that is echoed in many biblical passages, e.g., Job 10:9; 34:15; Ps 103:14; Eccl 12:7, etc. In this way the original threat is endorsed.
It is nevertheless striking that life and death are not mentioned in so many words in Gen 3:17–19; the return to dust is presented as inevitable, rather than as an immediate consequence in the death penalty which 2:17 led us to expect. Just as the remarks about toiling for food suggest that exclusion from the garden is imminent, so does the ultimacy of death, for obviously man could expect to live forever if he were free to eat of the tree of life. It may be then that the narrator avoids life-and-death language in this verse, because for him only life in the garden counts as life in the fullest sense. Outside the garden, man is distant from God and brought near to death. The warnings about returning to dust eventually hint that a drastic change will shortly overtake the man.
Wenham, G. J. (1987). Genesis 1–15 (Vol. 1, pp. 82–83). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.
“Until you return to the land from which you were taken for you are dust.” Here much of the phraseology of man’s creation is picked up. Man was “shaped from the dust of the land” (2:7); now he must return to dust. Woman was taken out of man (2:23) as man was taken from the ground (3:19). Man’s lifelong struggle for survival will eventually end in death. Most commentators have taken this curse as confirmation of the death-threat announced in 2:17 on those who eat of the forbidden tree. However, some have disputed this (notably Skinner and Westermann, and more guardedly, Gunkel and Jacob). They argue that the parallels between this verse (3:19) and 2:7 suggest that death is “part of the natural order of things—the inevitable ‘return’ of man to the ground whence he was taken” (Skinner, 83). They point out that the story does not say man would have lived forever if he had not eaten. “Death is therefore not punishment for man’s transgression; it is the limitation of the toil of human work” (Westermann, 1:363; cf. ET 267).
While commentators must always seek to free themselves from their own dogmatic prejudices in recovering the original sense of the text, it is doubtful whether Skinner and Westermann are justified in this instance. Though there are close parallels between 2:7 and 3:19, the omissions are significant, most obviously the absence of any mention of the breath of life which had made man a living creature. Furthermore, the curse has already mentioned a change in man’s feeding arrangements, suggesting that he would no longer enjoy access to the tree of life. Finally, and most decisively, the sentence on man is introduced in v 17 by an exact though incomplete quotation of the original prohibition not to eat of the tree of knowledge (2:17).
The narrator, who according to Westermann added 3:17a to the older curse formulae, must have expected the listener to complete the quotation of 2:17 and to be looking for a confirmation of the threat of death in the curses. But he holds this back to v 19, when at last man is explicitly told that he will return to the land: “for you are dust and to dust you must return,” a remark that is echoed in many biblical passages, e.g., Job 10:9; 34:15; Ps 103:14; Eccl 12:7, etc. In this way the original threat is endorsed.
It is nevertheless striking that life and death are not mentioned in so many words in Gen 3:17–19; the return to dust is presented as inevitable, rather than as an immediate consequence in the death penalty which 2:17 led us to expect. Just as the remarks about toiling for food suggest that exclusion from the garden is imminent, so does the ultimacy of death, for obviously man could expect to live forever if he were free to eat of the tree of life. It may be then that the narrator avoids life-and-death language in this verse, because for him only life in the garden counts as life in the fullest sense. Outside the garden, man is distant from God and brought near to death. The warnings about returning to dust eventually hint that a drastic change will shortly overtake the man.
Wenham, G. J. (1987). Genesis 1–15 (Vol. 1, pp. 82–83). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.