Genesis 3:19

3:19 By the sweat of your brow ¹  you will eat food

until you return to the ground, ² 

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” ³ 

Exodus 20:9

20:9 For six days ⁴  you may labor ⁵  and do all your work, ⁶ 

Luke 13:14

13:14 But the president of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ⁷  should be done! ⁸  So come ⁹  and be healed on those days, and not on the Sabbath day.”

[3:19]  ¹ tn The expression “the sweat of your brow” is a metonymy, the sweat being the result of painful toil in the fields.

[3:19]  ² 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]  ³ 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.

[20:9]  ⁴ tn The text has simply “six days,” but this is an adverbial accusative of time, answering how long they were to work (GKC 374 §118.k).

[20:9]  ⁵ tn The imperfect tense has traditionally been rendered as a commandment, “you will labor.” But the point of this commandment is the prohibition of work on the seventh day. The permission nuance of the imperfect works well here.

[20:9]  ⁶ tn This is the occupation, or business of the work week.

[13:14]  ⁷ sn The irony is that Jesus’ “work” consisted of merely touching the woman. There is no sense of joy that eighteen years of suffering was reversed with his touch.

[13:14]  ⁸ tn Grk “on which it is necessary to work.” This has been simplified in the translation.

[13:14]  ⁹ tn The participle ἐρχόμενοι (ercomenoi) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.