"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, and her seed and it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
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 shall not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow thou shalt 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, til thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.
And Adam called his wife's name Eve: because she was the mother of all living.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.
And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."
(Genesis 3:14-24)
I felt it was important to include the entire pronouncement of God upon the serpent, the man and the woman, all in one posting rather than risk losing the impact of just what all was caused by (or set into motion by) the actions of the serpent, the man and the woman combined.
But tomorrow is another day in which we can explore all that was lost by man and woman giving into those desires that ran contrary to the Word of God; just keep in mind that nothing has changed in all of these centuries past….men and women still make choices contrary to God….and still pay a price higher than they would have ever imagined, for making choices ruled by lust.
2 comments:
I have always been fascinated with God's stationing angels at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. God is spiritual, but as these verses and so many others provide, He sets up physical boundaries to help us and teach us. And sometimes He does so and we do not like it. MW
The important thing, as you have noted, is that all that God does is for our benefit...He loves us that much. We will see, as our study goes on, just how much love He displays toward the man and woman and all of their descendants in what He has pronounced here...so much love that what first appears to be a curse, is in reality such a tremendous blessing that I'm not sure that it isn't truly far beyond our capacity to fully comprehend.
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