Genesis 3:17-19

3:17 But to Adam ¹  he said,

“Because you obeyed ²  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ³  thanks to you; ⁴ 

in painful toil you will eat ⁵  of it all the days of your life.

3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

but you will eat the grain ⁶  of the field.

3:19 By the sweat of your brow ⁷  you will eat food

until you return to the ground, ⁸ 

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” ⁹ 

Proverbs 16:26

16:26 A laborer’s ¹⁰  appetite ¹¹  works on his behalf, ¹² 

for his hunger ¹³  urges him to work. ¹⁴ 

Matthew 6:25

Do Not Worry

6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry ¹⁵  about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?

John 6:27

6:27 Do not work for the food that disappears, ¹⁶  but for the food that remains to eternal life – the food ¹⁷  which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.” ¹⁸ 

John 6:1

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:1 After this ¹⁹  Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias). ²⁰ 

John 6:6-8

6:6 (Now Jesus ²¹  said this to test him, for he knew what he was going to do.) ²²  6:7 Philip replied, ²³  “Two hundred silver coins worth ²⁴  of bread would not be enough for them, for each one to get a little.” 6:8 One of Jesus’ disciples, ²⁵  Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,

[3:17]  ¹ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ² tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ³ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ⁵ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[3:18]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term עֵשֶׂב (’esev), when referring to human food, excludes grass (eaten by cattle) and woody plants like vines.

[3:19]  ⁷ tn The expression “the sweat of your brow” is a metonymy, the sweat being the result of painful toil in the fields.

[3:19]  ⁸ sn Until you return to the ground. The theme of humankind’s mortality is critical here in view of the temptation to be like God. Man will labor painfully to provide food, obviously not enjoying the bounty that creation promised. In place of the abundance of the orchard’s fruit trees, thorns and thistles will grow. Man will have to work the soil so that it will produce the grain to make bread. This will continue until he returns to the soil from which he was taken (recalling the creation in 2:7 with the wordplay on Adam and ground). In spite of the dreams of immortality and divinity, man is but dust (2:7), and will return to dust. So much for his pride.

[3:19]  ⁹ sn In general, the themes of the curse oracles are important in the NT teaching that Jesus became the cursed one hanging on the tree. In his suffering and death, all the motifs are drawn together: the tree, the sweat, the thorns, and the dust of death (see Ps 22:15). Jesus experienced it all, to have victory over it through the resurrection.

[16:26]  ¹⁰ sn The word for “laborer” and “labors” emphasizes the drudgery and the agony of work (עָמַל, ’amal). For such boring drudgery motivations are necessary for its continuance, and hunger is the most effective. The line is saying that the appetites are working as hard as the laborer.

[16:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “soul.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) here means “appetite,” functioning as a metonymy; the “inner soul” of a person representing his appetite (BDB 660 s.v. 5a; see, e.g., Pss 63:6; 107:9; Prov 13:25; 16:24; 27:7; Isa 56:11; 58:10; Jer 50:19; Ezek 7:19). This is suggested by the parallelism with “hunger.”

[16:26]  ¹² tn Heb “labors for him” (so NAB).

[16:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “his mouth” (so KJV, NAB). The term “mouth” is a metonymy for hunger or eating. The idea of the proverb is clear – the need to eat drives people to work.

[16:26]  ¹⁴ tc The LXX has apparently misread פִּיהוּ (pihu) and inserted the idea of “ruin” for the laborer: “he drives away ruin.” This influenced the Syriac to some degree; however, its first clause understood “suffering” instead of “labor”: “the person who causes suffering suffers.”

[6:25]  ¹⁵ tn Or “do not be anxious,” and so throughout the rest of this paragraph.

[6:27]  ¹⁶ tn Or “perishes” (this might refer to spoiling, but is more focused on the temporary nature of this kind of food).

[6:27]  ¹⁷ tn The referent (the food) has been specified for clarity by repeating the word “food” from the previous clause.

[6:27]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “on this one.”

[6:1]  ¹⁹ tn Again, μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta) is a vague temporal reference. How Jesus got from Jerusalem to Galilee is not explained, which has led many scholars (e.g., Bernard, Bultmann, and Schnackenburg) to posit either editorial redaction or some sort of rearrangement or dislocation of material (such as reversing the order of chaps. 5 and 6, for example). Such a rearrangement of the material would give a simple and consistent connection of events, but in the absence of all external evidence it does not seem to be supportable. R. E. Brown (John [AB], 1:236) says that such an arrangement is attractive in some ways but not compelling, and that no rearrangement can solve all the geographical and chronological problems in John.

[6:1]  ²⁰ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Only John in the New Testament refers to the Sea of Galilee by the name Sea of Tiberias (see also John 21:1), but this is correct local usage. In the mid-20’s Herod completed the building of the town of Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the lake; after this time the name came into use for the lake itself.

[6:6]  ²¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:6]  ²² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[6:7]  ²³ tn Grk “Philip answered him.”

[6:7]  ²⁴ tn Grk “two hundred denarii.” The denarius was a silver coin worth about a day’s wage for a laborer; this would be an amount worth about eight months’ pay.

[6:8]  ²⁵ tn Grk “one of his disciples.”