gengwall

Wow have you all been busy. I have been spending a long weekend with my wife on a belated 25th wedding aniversary in AZ and have fallen far behind. So, I will not try to make up ground, but simply join the discussion in progress.

Cheryl – as a side note, I see parts of Genesis 3:17 as prophetic for the man. Actually, there is a poetic flow to the Genesis 3 account in my opinion. Let me share:

vs 14a – Charge against serpent – The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,”
vs 14b – Curse against serpent – “Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field;”
vs 14c – Punishment against serpent – “On your belly you will go; and dust you will eat all the days of your life;”
vs 15 – Prophecy for serpent/Eve – “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
vs 16a – Punishment against Eve (females) – To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children;”
vs 16b – Prophecy for Adam/Eve – “Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Vs 16 completes a pattern – Charge, Curse, Punishment, Prophecy, Punishment, Prophecy. In verse 17 the pattern begins again.

vs 17a – Charge against Adam – 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’;”
vs 17b – Curse against Adam – “Cursed is the ground because of you;”
vs 17c – Punishment against Adam/mankind – “”In toil you will eat of it [the ground] all the days of your life”
vs 17d – Prophecy for Adam/mankind – “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you”
vs 17e – Punishment against Adam (males) – “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread”
vs 17f – Prophecy for Adam/mankind – “Till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken”

Furthermore, each of the 4 punishments outlines a difficulty in life:
For the serpent in 14c – difficulty surviving (or, perhaps, thriving)
For Eve (females) in 16a – difficulty accomplishing the population mandate for humanity.
For Adam and mankind in 17c – again, difficulty surviving
For Adam (males) in 17e – difficulty accomplishing the dominion (over the earth) mandate for humanity.

Note that the mandates are given to man and woman equally, but the difficulties in each seem to have some (although not universal) gender specificity.

And each of the 4 Prophecies outlines a type of warfare in life:
For the serpent and Eve in 15 – warfare in the spiritual realm
For Adam and Eve in 16b – warfare in marriage
For Adam and mankind in 17d – warfare with the earth (ground)
For mankind in 17f – warefare within our mortal bodies (which we will lose)

Just some food for thought. Of course, Cheryl’s points are so important – each character in the drama is addressed directly and individually, Adam does not speak for Eve, nor Eve for Adam, nobody gets off without punishment, but only the serpent and Adam are charged and have curses related to their actions.