Read with Me
Genesis 3:14-19 (HCSB)
Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
He said to the woman:
I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children in anguish,
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.
And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:
The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.”
Listen with Me
God had confronted first the man, then the woman, and finally the serpent with their sins. Now He gives His judgment in reverse order.
The serpent, not the snake, but satan in disguise, is the first to receive the consequences of his actions. He would now be debased, considered by God lower than even the dumb animals. Like the snake, whose form he had used to beguile the woman, he would not stand before God or before the people of the world. He would be reduced to slithering on the ground, slinking in the shadows, producing disgust rather than awe and wonder.
But in addition to that, even though satan had been able to exert his power to test and cause the downfall of God’s highest creation, his complete defeat at the hands of a descendant of those very human beings was now a sure thing and would come to pass. It is significant that, in a time when descendants were always counted through the fathers, the person who would defeat satan, crushing his head, even though he would receive a deadly wound in the process, is identified as the son of the woman, pointing unavoidably to the Virgin Birth of the Messiah, Jesus.
Because the woman, the future source of human life, had chosen to listen to the serpent’s words rather than God’s, and to choose to satisfy her own desires instead of being obedient, she received a two-fold punishment. Originally, with the command to reproduce greatly being preeminent, God had designed labor and delivery to be much less painful than it would now be. And even the act of raising children would be emotionally painful now that the woman had unleashed death and rebellion into the world. She would see some of her children rebel against her authority, and she would also see some of them die.
The second part of her punishment was a loss of status. Though she had been created to be an equal partner with the man, she had forfeited that equality. The man would now be given the responsibility for leading the family that would come through her. Even though she would still have a powerful desire to take leadership in the family, she would be required to submit to her husband’s authority.
Adam had breached his responsibility for the safety and security of his wife when he stood silently by as the serpent laid his snare for her (Genesis 3:6) before he decided to join her in rebellion and sin. For that reason, he had also forfeited the easy life that the couple had in the garden, with plenty of food readily at hand. He would now have to do the back breaking work of clearing ground, planting seeds, watering plants, weeding fields, and harvesting crops. He would experience drought and hunger and at times the responsibility providing for his family would be overwhelming.
And for the first time, God pronounced that the ultimate fate of Adam, and by extension to the whole human race, would be to die and decay, returning to the ground from which he had been fashioned.
Pray with Me
Father, every one of these punishments is both horrible and completely just. Each one perfectly fits the sin that had been committed. So often we compromise, and we sin, believing that we can figure out a way to avoid the penalties. But You are completely just in everything, even in the penalties You give for sin. Many of us understand that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but we forget that there will likely be other wages, other penalties, that will have to be paid in the meantime. Lord, help me to see every temptation for what it is, and help me to always choose obedience, so that I can not only avoid penalties, but so that I can live in uninterrupted communion with You. Amen.