Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,.... Or "of thy nose" (f), sweat appearing first and chiefly on the forehead, from whence it trickles down by the nose in persons employed in hard

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 the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.

In the sweat of thy face, i.e. of thy body: he mentions the face, because there the sweat appears first and most. Or, with labour of body or brain, , and vexation of mind, shalt thou get thy food and livelihood: bread being put for all nourishment, as , . Dust thou art, as to the constitution and original of thy body. See . Though upon thy obedience I would have preserved thy body no less than thy soul from all mortality; yet now, having sinned, thou shalt return unto dust in thy body, whilst the immortal spirit shall return unto God who gave it, . Thus thy end shall be as base as thy beginning.

Genesis 3:19 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.Ver. 19. In the sweat of thy face.] Or, of thy nose, as one rendereth it; that sweat that, beginning in thy brow, runs down by thy nose, through thy hard labour. This is a law laid upon all sorts, to sweat out a poor living, to humble themselves, by just labour, to sweat either their brows or their brains, for this latter also is a "sore" occupation, and the minister’ s toil is compared to that of those that cleave wood; or work hard in harvest. Shalt thou eat bread.] Not herbs only, as ver. 18. And here take notice of an elegant gradation, together with a merciful mitigation of man’ s misery. Thou shalt eat "earth" (ver. 17), "herbs" (ver. 18), and now here, "Thou shalt eat bread," that stay and staff of man’ s life under his hard labour Until thou return unto the ground.] "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord," i.e., "earth" by creation, "earth" by corruption, "earth" by resolution. This is the end of all men, and the living should lay it to heart. In this third of Genesis we find man’ s Exodus. This is the first text of mortality, and all comments, yea, all dead corpses concur to the exposition of it. For dust thou art.] Think on this, and be proud, if thou canst. We were created εικονιθεου, but now we live εικονιχοιχη, saith Agapetus. Had we so sweet a generation as that little creature Scaliger speaks of, that is bred in sugar, we might have some ground of boasting; but now we may sprinkle the dust of humility on our heads, as the ancients used to do, in token that they deserved to be as far under, as now they were above ground. And to dust thou shalt return.] By this limitation, God restrains man’ s death here threatened, to that earthy part of him, his body. The sorest death occurs when a man "dies in his sins," as those Jews did. Better die in a ditch a far deal. When he is "killed with death," as Jezebel’ s "children," this is the second death. The condemned person comes out of a dark prison, and goes to the place of execution; so do many from the womb to the tomb, nay, to that tormenting Tophet, to the which death is but a trap-door to give them entrance. Picherelius in Cosmop. See my True Treasure. κοπωντες, πατατοκοπτειν. Panem, dictum volunt απαν - Isodor., lib. xx. Etiam muta clamant cadavera. - Basil. Exercit. ad Cardan.

(19) Dust thou art . . . —It appears from this that death was man’s normal condition. A spiritual being is eternal by its own constitution, but the argument by which Bishop Butler proves the soul to be immortal equally proves the mortality of the body. Death, he says, is the division of a compound substance into its component parts; but as the soul is a simple substance, and incapable of division, it is per se incapable of death (Analogy, Part 1, Genesis 1). The body of Adam, composed of particles of earth, was capable of division, and our first parents in Paradise were assured of an unending existence by a special gift, typified by the tree of life. But now this gift was withdrawn, and henceforward the sweat of man’s brow was in itself proof that he was returning to his earth: for it told of exhaustion and waste. Even now labour is a blessing only when it is moderate, as when Adam kept a garden that spontaneously brought forth flowers and fruit. In excess it wears out the body and benumbs the soul, and by the pressure of earthly cares leaves neither time nor the wish for any such pursuits as are worthy of a being endowed with thought and reason and a soul.

Verse 19. In the sweat of thy face] Though the whole body may be thrown into a profuse sweat, if hard labour be long continued, yet the face or forehead is the first part whence this sweat begins to issue; this is occasioned by the blood being strongly propelled to the brain, partly through stooping, but principally by the strong action of the muscles; in consequence of this the blood vessels about the head become turgid through the great flux of blood, the fibres are relaxed, the pores enlarged, and the sweat or serum poured out. Thus then the very commencement of every man's labour may put him in mind of his sin and its consequences. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.] God had said that in the day they ate of the forbidden fruit, dying they should die - they should then become mortal, and continue under the influence of a great variety of unfriendly agencies in the atmosphere and in themselves, from heats, colds, drought, and damps in the one, and morbid increased and decreased action in the solids and fluids of the other, till the spirit, finding its earthly house no longer tenable, should return to God who gave it; and the body, being decomposed, should be reduced to its primitive dust. It is evident from this that man would have been immortal had he never transgressed, and that this state of continual life and health depended on his obedience to his Maker. The tree of life, as we have already seen, was intended to be the means of continual preservation. For as no being but God can exist independently of any supporting agency, so man could not have continued to live without a particular supporting agent; and this supporting agent under God appears to have been the tree of life. Ολιγηδεκεισομεσθα Κονις, οστεωνλυθεντων. Anac. Od. 4., v. 9. "We shall lie down as a small portion of dust, our bones being dissolved."

19. in the sweat of thy face] As in the sentence upon the woman, so here, in the sentence upon the man, suffering is not punitive, but disciplinary, being associated with his highest vocation. The necessity of labour has proved man’s greatest blessing; it has evoked the qualities which are distinctively most noble, and has been the cause of all progress and improvement. till thou return, &c.] Man’s work is to continue to the end. Old age has its own scope for activities. Physical robustness is not the only measure of responsibility or efficiency. dust thou art, &c.] See note on Genesis 3:7. Jehovah does not slay man at once; He is merciful, and relaxes His first decree. Man is not to enjoy earthly immortality: but he shall live until “the breath of God” is taken from him, and he becomes dust again.

19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread — Not only shall the sweat oppress thee in thy toil, but even when thou sittest to eat bread, it shall appear on thy face.