GENESIS 3
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you,‘ You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
– Genesis 3:14-19
GENESIS 3 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN
A poem by ILMA inspired by these verses
When people go against God’s plan and will
He must expect for the consequences of that sin
God will not tolerate any insolence against him
He will surely experience results from that defiance.
We now witness in the book of Genesis the consequences of the original sin of Adam and Eve. The serpent was the first that got the curse from God. The serpent will now crawl on his belly and eat dust. You wonder if the serpent had legs or feet before the fall. I think that the idea of crawling on the ground and eating dust is indicative of defeat and lowly life. Some commentaries say that the dust on the ground symbolizes defeat. The devil thinks highly of himself, so without the feet or legs, he has no height or power to crush anyone. God also placed a separation from the woman since it was Eve that he preyed on and it is also from a woman that the Son of God will be born. God sets boundaries between those who belong to him through Christ and those who belong to the world. Satan will never have victory over the Son of God.
The consequence of sin on the woman is two-fold. The first is pain in childbirth and in raising children. The second is to desire to control her husband but she will be overruled by him. No wonder most mothers are the ones experiencing labor pains and also the struggle of raising children who will not go against her. She is the nurturer, so she will be the one who will suffer the hardships of raising her children.
The aftermath of sin brought this curse on the man: he will be forbidden to eat from the tree of life. In other words, he won’t just get nourishment easily as he did before he sinned. He will have to work till the ground that he was made from. He will struggle to put food on his table because of his disobedience.
Both Adam and Eve took for granted how they had it all so easy before they disobeyed God.
REFLECTION
- Cite instances when these curses on the man, woman and the devil manifest today in our
- lives.