1. Adam would have to toil hard to obtain a living from the ground (vv. 17-18). Adam already had received the privilege of enjoying the garden (2:15), but this did not require strenuous toil.
"As for the man, his punishment consists in the hardship and skimpiness of his livelihood, which he now must seek for himself. The woman's punishment struck at the deepest root of her being as wife and mother, the man's strikes at the innermost nerve of his life: his work, his activity, and provision for sustenance."213
"These punishments represent retaliatory justice. Adam and Eve sinned by eating; they would suffer in order to eat. She manipulated her husband; she would be mastered by her husband. The serpent destroyed the human race; he will be destroyed."214
"In drawing a contrast between the condition of the land before and after the Fall, the author shows that the present condition of the land was not the way it was intended to be. Rather, the state of the land was the result of human rebellion. In so doing, the author has paved the way for a central motif in the structure of biblical eschatology, the hope of a new heaven and a new earth' (cf. Isa 65:17: [sic] Ro 8:22-24; Rev 21:1)."215
2. He would return to dust when he died (v. 19). Rather than living forever experiencing physical immortality, people would now die physically and experience physical mortality.
"Genesis 3:19 does not attribute the cause of death to the original composition of the human body, so that man would ultimately have died anyway, but states merely one of the consequences of death: Since the human body was formed from the dust of the earth, it shall, upon death, be resolved to earth again."216
Verse 18 shows the reversal of the land's condition before and after the Fall. Verse 19 shows the same for man's condition.217
"Adam and Eve failed . . . to observe the restrictions of the Edenic covenant [1:26-31; 2:16-17]. Innocence was lost and conscience was born. . . .
"Having failed under the Edenic covenant, human beings were then faced with the provisions of the Adamic covenant [3:14-19]. That covenant was unconditional in the sense that Adam and Eve's descendants would be unable by human effort to escape the consequences of sin. . . .
"A ray of light is provided, however, in the Adamic covenant because God promised that a redeemer would come [3:15]. . . . This is the introduction of the great theme of grace and redemption found in the Scriptures. . . .
"Unless tempered by the grace of God and changed by subsequent promises, people continue to the present time to labor under the provisions of the Adamic covenant."218
