Genesis 3:19
17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” 20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
Tobit 3:6
5 And now your many judgments are true in exacting penalty from me for my sins. For we have not kept your commandments and have not walked in accordance with truth before you. 6 So now deal with me as you will; command my spirit to be taken from me, so that I may be released from the face of the earth and become dust. For it is better for me to die than to live, because I have had to listen to undeserved insults, and great is the sorrow within me. Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress; release me to go to the eternal home, and do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me. For it is better for me to die than to see so much distress in my life and to listen to insults."
Notes and References
"... blossoming of almonds, breaking open of the caper, and the engorged grasshopper could also be images of springtime. In such a case they would function to provide a contrast between the fate of nature and that of humans. Natural images opened the sage’s discussion (e.g. 1:2-9) and now the sage draws conclusions on the basis of nature’s cycles: “there is nothing new under the sun.” Job makes a similar assumption about nature’s cycles when he asks about the fate of a tree: “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.” “But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?”(Job 14:7,10). The sage’s conclusion in verse 5 seems related. Unlike the cycles in nature, humans go to their eternal home: death (See Tobit 3:6 for the same image and its reference to death) ... Verse 7 solidifies the references to death by using two familiar biblical images: “dust” and “breath” or “spirit”. That the dust returns to the earth recalls both Genesis 2:7 and 3:19; (compare Ecclesiastes 3:20). In Genesis 3:19 it stands as the symbol of humanness: humans are made of dust and to dust they return. Readers may also remember that Abraham denigrates himself by applying the symbol (Genesis 18:27). Job’s friends also denigrate humankind using the imagery of dust as a symbol of inferiority (Job 4:19; compare 8:9) ..."
Horne, Milton P. The Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Proverbs-Ecclesiastes (pp. 536-537) Smyth & Helwys, 2003