genesis 2 and 3: sabbath, the first teacher of the gospel

Hebrew paragraph divisions

Gen 2:1-3 {p} Seventh day of Creation
Gen 2:4-3:15 {s} Disobedience to YHVH’s command is sin
Gen 3:16 {s} Consequences for the woman (painful toil)
Gen 3:17-21 {p} Consequences for the man (painful toil)

And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God / Elohiym finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because in it He had rested from all His work which God had created and made. Gen 2:1-3

While the heavens and the earth were new, and still perfect, unmarred by any evil or sin, God set apart the seventh day – the Hebrew meaning of “hallowed” – as a day of resting from work.

But then sin did enter the perfect creation in the very next chapter:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate it; and she also gave it to her husband with her, and he ate it. Gen 3:6

God meted out the consequences of their sin, first to Eve:

To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your pain and your labor; in pain you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” Gen 3:16

And then to Adam:

And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree that I commanded you, saying: ‘You shall not eat of it;’ cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the herb of the field. In 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.” Gen 3:17-19

The two consequences share the same characteristic: each will be painful toil for them.

Hebrew roots

The word pain, toil in these verses is the same word in Hebrew: Strong’s H6093, itstsabon, a concrete noun meaning, “painful toil;” i.e., to be in pain from grief or heavy toil; pain, labor, hardship, sorrow, toil. It is from Strong’s H6087 עצב atsav, a primitive root meaning, “to labor.” The ancient pictographs are ayin + tsadey + bet.

ayin ע = the eye, thus to see, watch, look, know, understand
tsadey צ = trail, thus a man concealed, journey, chase, hunt
bet ב = house, thus house, household, family, in, within

The story the pictographs are telling is of looking ahead (ayin) at a lifelong journey (tsadey) to maintain the house and family (bet). The sense I am getting, in its association to pain from grief or heavy toil, is of endless work: a job that is never completed. Housework, cooking, laundry, home repairs, raising crops, tending livestock, going to a job: it is the same work over and over again constantly repeating, which continues until the man and the woman return to the dust from which they were taken.

An alternate meaning of atsav according to Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon, is “to worry or be vexed,” and I think that is a very common side effect of the responsibility men and women have in caring for their family.

The traditional understanding of Gen 3:16, the woman’s painful toil, is that she will experience pain in childbirth. But I think the Hebrew makes it clear that her role of bringing forth children does not stop with just bearing them, but also raising them. The husband’s painful toil is similar in that it is never-ending; with the added responsibility of knowing that the buck stops here, that his success at farming or at his career means the difference between his wife and children being able to eat or go hungry.

So we see that painful toil, never-ending labor, is the daily consequence of sin, with death waiting for us at the journey’s end. But God in His grace extended mercy to man and woman before they ever sinned: He set aside the seventh day as a day of rest from labor from the foundation of the world. Every seventh day, men and women can lay down the consequence of their sin, their painful toil, burden, and responsibility, and enjoy a respite of grace.

Thus Sabbath rest is the first teacher of the gospel of grace. The earned wages of sin leads to death, but the undeserved free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, not by work, lest any man should boast. We cannot earn life in Him by works, but it is given to us freely as a gift, because God is a gracious and merciful God from the foundation of the world.