Genesis 3:17

Hebrew Bible

15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.” 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.

Job 5:6

Hebrew Bible

4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed at the place where judgment is rendered, nor is there anyone to deliver them. 5 The hungry eat up his harvest, and take it even from behind the thorns, and the thirsty pant for their wealth. 6 For evil does not come up from the dust, nor does trouble spring up from the ground, 7 but people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward. 8 “But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would set forth my case.

 Notes and References

"... it has been noted that the language of the non-Priestly creation account contains multiple wordplays. One of these is the conspicuous wordplay between םדא ('adam') and המדא ('adamah'): Adam is taken from Adamah (Genesis 2:7, 3:19), and he will also return to Adamah (Genesis 3:19). In Job 5:6–7, a similar wordplay is created by the placement of המדא (Adamah) closer to םדא ('Adam'). This further strengthens the argument for viewing המדא ('Adamah') and םדא ('Adam') in Job 5:6–7 as an allusion to Genesis 3:17–19. Again, suggestive in Job 5:6 is the choice of המדא ('Adamah') over ץרא ('earth'), as it shows that the authors of the book of Job may have employed these terms to echo the Adam-adamah wordplay in Genesis 2–3 ... According to Eliphaz’s line of argument, the strict equation of the deed and consequence can be clarified by recalling Genesis 3:17–19, where disobedience to God brought destruction for the first couple. However, for the authors of the book of Job, Genesis 3:17–19 is more than a mere example, as the implications of Adam’s disobedience are far-reaching - the life experienced on earth contains pain and hardships for all of humanity ..."

Saleem, Yasir ‘For a Man Is Born to Suffer’: Intertextuality between Job 4–5 and Gen. 2.4b–3.24 (pp. 388-407) Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2022

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