welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #25 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 3:17-19:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

In our last Bible study we saw that God placed a curse upon Adam and upon the entire earth. It said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake,” and the Hebrew word translated as “ground” can be translated as “earth.” God pronounced the punishment for sin upon the man Adam and all his descendants. We know that punishment includes death: “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” There was a curse upon the creation and man would have struggles in this cursed creation in getting bread. There have been numerous struggles throughout the centuries as God withheld the rain. There have been famines and people starved to death in certain times, so man has often had a great concern for obtaining his bread and gathering the food that comes out of the ground. Oftentimes, it has been in sorrow, even at times of plentiful rains and there have been bountiful crops, but there are still struggles and difficulties. As men work they have often experienced trials and tribulations through what they do to obtain their bread and through much of earth’s history man has struggled to put bread on the table.

While we know this is true, we also know that God is painting a spiritual picture through Adam who was a figure of Him that was to come. Adam was the “husbandman” and the Bible tells us in John, chapter 15 that God is the “husbandman.” The husbandman will bring forth a crop and the crop comes out of a cursed ground. The ground has thorns and thistles, but it also brings forth herbs and God said in Hebrews, chapter 6 that the herb relates to blessings. So, curses and blessings come out of the ground. It is similar idea to the “wheat” and the “tares.” The wheat typify those that are saved and the tares typify those that are unsaved. There is a harvest of the Lord Jesus Christ as Christ, the Sower, sows the seed through His people bringing the Gospel into the world during the various times and seasons. Christ brings forth the fruit, but it is done in “sorrow,” just as childbirth is accomplished in sorrow. The bringing forth of God’s elect to salvation is always done in sorrow.

Then we looked at the phrase in Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread.” We saw that the word “sweat” identifies with the sweat like great drops of blood that fell from Christ when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane experiencing the wrath of God. The word “sweat” identifies with someone under the wrath of God.

Then we looked at the word “face” and I encourage you to look up this word. It is Strong’s #639. We saw that it was translated as “nostrils” and “anger” and “wrath.” We saw in Deuteronomy 32 that there was a verse that identified it with the wrath of God. Let us look at a couple of other places where our Hebrew word translated as “face” is translated as “wrath.” It says in Psalm 2:5:

Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

Then it says in Psalm 2:12:

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

In both verses the word “wrath” is the same Hebrew word translated as “face” in our verse.

Then in the Psalm of Moses in Psalm 90, it says in Psalm 90:7:

For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

Also, it says in Psalm 90:11:

Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

Again, and again, and again, in dozens and dozens of places this word is translated as “wrath” or “anger” or even “nostrils,” but they are all associated with the fury of God against sin.

And this is the word that God selected to put in Genesis 3, verse 19. Now if it was just the idea of sweat pouring down a man’s face, why did God not use the typical word for face? It is not that word, but the word for “wrath” and “anger.” It is the “sweat of thy wrath” and, again, “sweat” also refers to being under the wrath of God, so we have these two words that are really identified with one another.

You know, being a translator of the Bible was a very difficult task. That is for sure. They had the context and they saw that God was speaking to Adam about his sin and God had been talking about the cursed ground and “thorns and thistles.” Then He used the word “sweat” and the translators know that when a farmer works the ground, there is a great deal of labor involved and you would “sweat.” So, naturally, the “sweat” comes down from the face and God permitted them to make that translation, but the word “face” is wrong. It is not correct at all. Instead, it should say, “the sweat of thy nostrils,” but an even better translation would be “the sweat of thy wrath.”

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:19:

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…

Again, how do you eat bread? Here, God has been speaking of the ground and it is through sowing the seed and harvesting the crop that you obtain your food and eat your bread. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ is likened to “bread.” It says in John 6:48-51:

I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

It goes on to speak more about that bread and we will come back to this passage to look at another verse later, but there is a strong emphasis in John, chapter 6 that Christ is the “bread.” The manna that fell from heaven was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as the “bread of life.” Just as physical bread sustains man’s physical life, Jesus is spiritual bread that sustains spiritual life. If you lack physical bread, you will die, ultimately. If you lack spiritual bread, you will experience the second death and you will not live forever. In God’s Gospel program, when He saved His elect, they ate of that spiritual bread and that could only be because Christ had suffered the wrath of God. When sweat was dropping like great drops of blood into the ground, it was a picture of the Lord Jesus giving His life for His people. It went into the ground because the believers would be the fruit that would come forth. Actually, it is a better illustration with the verse in John where it speaks of a corn of wheat falling into the ground, in John 12:24:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

As the corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, through its death much fruit comes forth. There is more wheat that will result. And as Christ died, His life was given and went into the ground and it was as though the whole company of the elect (everyone whose name was recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life) came out of the ground. So, that is one way we can look at our verse in Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of thy wrath shalt thou eat bread.” All the true believers do eat the “bread of life,” the Lord Jesus.

On another level, when a man plants a crop, does he not eat of the crop? It is actually a principal in the Bible that the husbandman eats of his own crop. So, in a sense, when the fruit comes forth God is partaking of it, but there is also another way of looking at this when we understand the word “eat.” It is Strong’s #398 and it is most often translated as “eat,” but it is also translated as “devour” several times. For instance, it says in Isaiah 5:24:

Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff…

The word “devoureth” is the same Hebrew word. The fire eats the stubble and we can see why the translators translated this word as “devour” rather than as “eat.”

It is also used that way in Ezekiel 15:3-5:

Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned?

In both verse 4 and verse 5 the word “devoureth” and “devoured” is the word translated in our verse as “eat.”

Also, it says in Deuteronomy 4:24:

For JEHOVAH thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

The word “consuming” is our same Hebrew word. It would not sound proper if translated as “eating fire,” so the translators rightly translated it as “consuming fire.”

So, we can see how it is possible to translate this word translated as “eat” as either “devour” or “consume.” Since our verse speaks of eating bread, it made sense that they translated it as “eat,” as this word is often translated that way, but let us go back to John, chapter 6 in regard to the bread of life. We know that Jesus said in John 6:48, “I am that bread of life.” Then it says in John 6:50-51:

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Then it says in John 6:53-56:

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

Here, Christ is making equivalent the “bread” and His “flesh.” You have to eat His flesh and drink His blood. When we go back to our verse in Genesis 3:19 where we have seen that Adam is a figure of Christ, it says, “In the sweat of thy wrath, it was the wrath of God that came down upon Jesus. Jesus as the High Priest poured out the wrath upon Himself and He sacrificed Himself. The priest in the temple would slay the sacrificial animal and God slayed the Lamb from the foundation of the world. Christ is one with the Father, so He is slaying the Lamb and, yet, He is the Lamb. We cannot understand that. But we can see what it is saying in our verse in Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of thy wrath shalt thou consume my flesh.” If you translate the word translated as “eat” as “consume” or “desire,” it does relate to the wrath of God because our God is a consuming fire. The fire devours the stubble. We can see how it fits with Christ as the “bread of life” and the bread that He gave was His flesh. Again, it is saying, “In the sweat of thy wrath shalt thou consume my flesh.” Then we have a spiritual statement that all comes together and each part fits and ties in with one another.

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:19:

… till thou return unto the ground…

In other words, it is until you die. And that was the case with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He began to be in heaviness and agony. The drops of sweat fell from His face as blood to the earth or to the ground and that was because He was suffering under the wrath of God and it would continue to the time He went to the cross. Then on the cross, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He gave up the ghost and He died. They placed His body in the tomb, but He was no longer suffering the wrath of God, but there was the figure of the “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,” so His body had to wait until the third day on that early Sunday morning to rise from the dead.

But, again, our verse is saying, “In the sweat of thy wrath shalt thou consume my flesh til I return to the ground.” Christ died on the cross. It was finished. The sweat of the wrath of God had consumed His flesh, in that sense, and then it ceased.

Then it goes on to say at the end of Genesis 3:19:

… for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

When we look up the word “dust” with the Lord Jesus Christ in mind, we see a Messianic Psalm in Psalm 22:1:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so* far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

This is what Jesus quoted while on the cross and before He said, “It is finished.” We know that this Psalm is telling us about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are several statements in this Psalm that relate to the experience Jesus endured. It says in Psalm 22:13-15:

They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

Here, we see it refers to Christ experiencing the wrath of God on the cross and, actually, the entire time He was suffering under the wrath of God. The statement, “And thou hast brought me into the dust of death,” fits in with what we saw in Genesis 3:19: “For out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This identifies with death and Christ died in the tableau at the cross as He demonstrated His death from the foundation of the world. Just to verify that it is pointing to Jesus on the cross, it says in Psalm 22:16-18:

For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

Each one of these statements are fulfilled in the Gospel records. Christ was brought into the dust of death and this fits perfectly with what we found as the overall message of this verse, with the word “sweat” and the word “face” that should have been translated as “wrath,” and so forth. It was a Messianic message that the Lord Jesus Christ would be the fruit of the harvest and He was the first of the firstfruits in God’s illustration of His salvation program in regard to the harvest and the “times and seasons.” The early righteous rain brought forth the fruit of the Lord Jesus Christ, so we are not surprised that this is in view when we look into the deeper spiritual meaning of Genesis 3, verse 19.