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From: Genesis 3:9-24
Temptation and the First Sin (Continuation)
[16] To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in
pain you shall bring forth children, yet 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 toil you shall eat
of it all the days of your life; [18] thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field. [19] “In the sweat of your face you shall
eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
[20] The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all
living.
Adam and Eve are Expelled from Paradise
[22] Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, kno-
wing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree
of life, and eat, and live for ever”—[23] therefore the Lord God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. [24] He drove out
the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a
flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
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Commentary:
3:7-13. This passage begins the description of the effects of the original sin. Man
and woman have come to know evil, and it shows, initially, in a most direct way—
in their own bodies. The inner harmony described in Genesis 2:25 is broken, and
concupiscence rears its head. Their friendship with God is also broken, and they
flee from his presence, to avoid their nakedness being seen. As if his Creator
could not see them! The harmony between man and woman is also fractured: he
puts the blame on her, and she puts it on the serpent. But all three share in the
responsibility, and therefore all three are going to pay the penalty.
“The harmony in which they found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now
destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered;
the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions (cf. Gen 3:7-16), their
relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is
broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man (cf. Gen 3:17, 19).
Because of man, creation is now subject ‘to its bondage to decay’ (Rom 8:21).
Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true:
man will ‘return to the ground’ (Gen 3:19), for out of it he was taken. “Death
makes its entrance into human history” (cf. Rom 5:12)” (”Catechism of the Ca-
tholic Church”, 400).
3:14-15. The punishment God imposes on the serpent includes confrontation be-
tween woman and the serpent, between mankind and evil, with the promise that
man will come out on top. That is why this passage is called the “Proto-gospel”:
it is the first announcement to mankind of the good news of the Redeemer-
Messiah. Clearly, a bruise to the head is deadly, whereas a bruise to the heel
is curable.
As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “God, who creates and conserves all
things by his Word, (cf. Jn 1:3), provides men with constant evidence of himself
in created realities (cf. Rom 1:19-20). And furthermore, wishing to open up the
way to heavenly salvation, by promising redemption (cf. Gen 3:15); and he has
never ceased to take care of the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life
to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing (cf. Rom 2:6-7)” (”Dei
Verbum”, 3).
Victory over the devil will be brought about by a descendant of the woman, the
Messiah. The Church has always read these verses as being messianic, refer-
ring to Jesus Christ; and it was seen in the woman the mother of the promised
Savior; the Virgin Mary is the new Eve. “The earliest documents, as they are
read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further and full revelation,
bring the figure of a woman, Mother of the Redeemer, into a gradually clearer
light. Considered in this light, she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the
promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their
fall into sin (cf. Gen 3:15) [...]. Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert
with Irenaeus in their preaching: ‘the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by
Mary’s obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened
by her faith’ (St Irenaeus, “Adv. Haer.” 3, 22, 4). Comparing Mary with Eve, they
call her ‘Mother of the living’ (St Epiphanius, “Adv. Haer. Panarium” 78, 18) and
frequently claim: ‘death through Eve, life through Mary’ (St Jerome, “Epistula”
22, 21; etc.)” (Vatican II, “Lumen Gentium”, 55-56).
So, woman is going to have a key role in that victory over the devil. In his Latin
translation of the Bible, the “Vulgate”, St Jerome in fact reads the relevant pas-
sage as “she [the woman] shall bruise your head”. That woman is the Blessed
Virgin, the new Eve and the mother of the Redeemer, who shares (by anticipa-
tion and pre-eminently) in the victory of her Son. Sin never left its mark on her,
and the Church proclaims her as the Immaculate Conception.
St Thomas explains that the reason why God did not prevent the first man from
sinning was because “God allows evils to be done in order to draw forth some
greater good. Thus St Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the
more’ (Rom 5:20); and the “Exultet” sings, ‘O happy fault,...which gained for us
so great a Redeemer’” (”Summa Theologiae”, 3, 1, 3 and 3; cf. “Catechism of
the Catholic Church”, 412).
3:16. Turning to the woman, God tells her what effects sin is going to have on
her, as a mother and a wife. The pain of childbirth also points to the presence
of physical pain in mankind, as a consequence of sin. Sin is also the cause of
disorder in family life, especially between husband and wife: the text expressly
instances a husband’s despotic behavior towards his wife. Discrimination against
women is here seen as the outcome of sin; it is something, therefore, that the
Bible regards as evil. Sin is also the reason why people fail to appreciate the
dignity of marriage and the family—a widespread failing denounced by the Se-
cond Vatican Council: “the dignity of these partnerships is not reflected every-
where, but is overshadowed by polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free
love, and similar blemishes: furthermore, married love is too often dishonored
by selfishness, hedonism, and unlawful contraceptive practices. Besides, the
economic, social, psychological, and civil climate of today has a severely dis-
turbing effect on family life” (”Gaudium Et Spes”, 47).
3:17-19 The effects of sin that man is warned about are closely connected with
his God-given mission—to till and keep the garden, or, to put it another way, to
master the earth by means of his activity, work. The harmony between man and
nature has been shattered through sin: from now on man is going to find work
burdensome and it will cause him much distress. Thus, the effects of sin are
all the various kinds of injustice which are to be found in the world of work and
in man’s control over the goods of the earth. God meant the earth and all that it
contains benefit all mankind, but what in fact happens is that “in the midst of
huge numbers deprived of the absolute necessities of life there are some who
live in riches and squander their wealth; and this happens in less developed
areas as well. Luxury and misery exist side by side. While a few individuals en-
joy an almost unlimited opportunity to choose for themselves, the vast majority
have no chance whatever of exercising personal initiative and responsibility, and
quite often have to live and work in conditions unworthy of human beings” (Vati-
can II, “Gaudium Et Spes”, 63)
The consequences of sin will stay with man until he returns to the earth, that is,
until he dies. However, God does not immediately put into effect what he threa-
tened in Genesis 2:17; man continues to live on earth, but he is destined to die.
It is in this sense that St Paul explains human existence, in the light of the work
of Christ whom he sees as being the second Adam: ‘Therefore as sin came into
the world through one man and death through sin, [...] so death spread to all
men because all men sinned. [..] If, because of one man’s trespass death
reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance
of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus
Christ” (Rom 5:12, 17).
3:21-24. Even after the fall, God still takes care of man. Man will continue to po-
pulate the earth, in spite of death, thanks to woman’s role as mother. God comes
to the rescue of man’s nakedness, which made him feel so afraid and ashamed.
Man’s place in history emerges with his expulsion from paradise. He now knows
good and evil; he is deprived of the happiness for which he was created and, with
death as his fate, he yearns for the immortality which in fact belongs to God alone.
This is the human condition; it affects everyone and its cause lies in sin. Thus,
“we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice
not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam
and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected “the human nature” that
they would then transmit “in a fallen state” (cf. Council of Trent, “De Peccato Ori-
ginali”). It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is,
the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And
that is why original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘con-
tracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act” (”Catechism of the Catholic
Church”, 404).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.