So it is that we find ourselves at one of the most contentious bits of scripture in the whole book of Genesis.
This section regarding the curses and the driving out of Adam and Eve does a lot to reflect to us where are our hearts are. There is something instinctively cringe inducing about this section. On the one hand we agree that Adam and Eve totally deserved punishment. Death penalty? Well, they knew what the punishment would be so…they really couldn’t complain. But death on the very day does seem severe. But then God doles out some really weird punishments instead.
The Serpent gets the most significant change to its being. God changes its very nature in order to punish it. The Serpent will go on its belly now, the ability to walk is apparently removed, and it is considered cursed above all beasts of the field. There is something a little lost in translation to the English here.
If we look at the animal kingdom and their responses to snakes we can see the original meaning more clearly. EVERYTHING hates a snake. Monkeys freak out when a snake is near. Horses try to trample a snake. Bluejays will scream at the top of their lungs for however long a snake is in the area, letting all know of the danger. A mongoose will engage them on sight until either the mongoose or the snake is dead. Apparently it is only within Humans that a tolerance for snakes exists at all. The Serpent is cursed to be considered accursed (literally an abhorrent thing) to all animal species.
The Serpent then becomes the animal representation of all things accursed, and especially of Satan himself who is permanently accursed. This symbol carries through the Old Testament and into the New Testament. When Moses is instructed by God to create a bronze image of a serpent and put it up on a pole, the people look at the image and the accursed image takes on the curse of the snake bites. When Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, He mentions that, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up…” Jesus declared that He was going to take on the sin curse of all, causing Himself to become the sin curse itself for all humanity; the abhorrent thing upon a pole healing all who will gaze upon Him for their salvation. When Jesus confronts the Pharisees, He refers to them as a “brood of vipers”. When He does so, He is quite literally calling them Sons of the Serpent, Satan. Naturally they are offended by this since they considered themselves Sons of Abraham.
Interestingly, when we look at what God gives to Adam and Eve the word “cursed” isn’t used for them personally. We have different sets of vexing circumstances, things that are going to make life more difficult in the world. But “curses”? Abhorrent things?
To Eve God says that He will multiply her pains in childbearing. He repeats Himself. “In pain you shall bring forth children”. When we look into the Hebrew here we can see that it isn’t as cut and dry as “more pain in childbirth”. The word for pain can also mean sorrow, toil, hardship. Certainly it could mean pain, however in the original language of this verse it is not just in childbirth. The pain, sorrow, toil, and hardship is in conception as well as the actually bringing forth of the child from the womb.
This could mean many things. What sticks out in my mind is given that Adam’s “curse” relates to difficulty in fruitfulness and labor of a different order, here it may mean that conception will be more difficult and there will be far greater anxiety over that conception. They are about to leave the Garden. What security is out there? They will be living day to day, exposed, and struggling to figure out how to support themselves beyond the Garden, beyond the certain presence of God. How much scarier would that be? How much more sorrow inducing as Eve looks back at the garden, back at what they lost for not obeying?
God also indicates that there will now be a power struggle between her and Adam which trickles down to us to this day. Where there was peace and purpose, now there will be contention. There has been much debate about this passage and I refer you to those on the internet who could tell you far better than I the ins and outs of the language and metaphor used here. The BEMA podcast has a particularly good episode on this. The Bible Project has a pretty interesting perspective as well.
Before I get to the consequences of this sin for Adam, I want to point out something God says here.
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,'”
There have been a disturbing amount of ink spilled, rage spewed, bitterness drunk deep, and division created by this verse in couples, homes, and churches around this nation. An extreme conservative wing of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity legitimately believes that Adam’s big sin was listening to his wife. They have taken this a step further to declare that listening to any woman’s advice is tantamount to sin; by virtue of the fact that it was spoken by a female any supposed “wisdom” is therefore suspect. I find this to be an especially ridiculous and arrogant way of thinking that I believe offends God in very deep ways. Don’t ever slander a King’s daughters. It doesn’t end well. Men are just as capable of error as women; just as capable of every sin of disobedience.
Quite plainly, Adam’s sin here is listening to his wife rather than listening to God, rather than following the specific commands of God. Somehow he managed to make an idol out of her. He knew full well what God’s command was and instead listened to someone other than God on the issue. He violated God’s commandment to comply with her command to take and eat. She just happened to be the messenger. Had Adam been the one to take the apple first and tell Eve to eat it, then God would be saying “Because you listened to the voice of your husband and did what I told you not to…” Adam’s sin is clearly his own and not to be laid at her feet. Samson was clearly responsible for listening to Delilah rather than the LORD. David was at fault for his own sin with Bathsheba, and the list could go on and on.
Because of Adam’s choice to disobey, the ground, the Earth itself, is made cursed, abhorrent, to Adam. Adam’s previous experience in the Garden of Eden was idyllic. It seems as though the plants were overachievers to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. Tending said Garden was work, to be sure, but it was a work where Adam and Eve were in partnership with the Earth to bring forth abundance. Now when Adam goes to work the ground it will be significantly harder to do so. Now there will be thorns and thistles. It will not yield its fruits so easily, nor will its bounty be a sure thing from season to season. Every year will be filled with anxiety.
God says this will be the case for Adam and Eve until they return to the ground, “…for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We have a pretty good handle on this thousands of years later. We speak this at funerals. We are reminded of it in church services lest we get too haughty. It’s still unpleasant to hear, but we all learn that all earthly life ends at some point. But imagine for a moment being the first human to hear this from the lips of God.
Imagine that you know where you came from. You were dust and water; mud fashioned into your form by the hands of God Himself. God breathed His very essence into you and you became alive. You are so in touch with the magical reality that God decided you should exist, made you to exist, raised you from humble elements into some “like” God. You are no longer doubt. You are higher than dust, capable of so much more than dust. Every breath is a reminder that you live and breathe the breath of God.
And God now says that when your days are done, you will return to dust.
There is no “How can this be” because Adam now knows the humbling truth. It is God who sustains you, not you yourself, and you have thrown in all away in order to be something you already were. “Like” God. You were dirt. You were made more than dirt. And now you will be dirt again some day.
The worst part is, of course, that it didn’t have to be this way.
Adam names the woman “Eve” because she is the mother of all living.
The Lord sacrifices an animal in order to provide them more durable garments than fig leaves which were probably a cute idea, like a preschooler’s macaroni art, but won’t last. And then God makes those garments Himself. He doesn’t command them into being. He stitched them together Himself. He crafted them from raw materials, motivated by His love for His creatures who just screwed up big, but still need to be cared for.
And then God starts talking to Himself, and for the first time in 44 years I noticed something peculiar here just last week…and it all starts next time with the question of, “Was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil actually good?” And what do these “curses” have to do with it?
Pax,
W
Finding Narnia 
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