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Post by jaybee on Sept 12, 2014 9:33:01 GMT -8
It is interesting that in Gen 3 man is not cursed, but the ground and the serpent is.
Then the first man to be cursed is the one who murders. Sin did not result in man's curse, but destroying an "image" of God? Gen 4:11
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Post by Josh on Sept 12, 2014 13:37:59 GMT -8
How are you defining cursed? I suspect you're meaning it in an "original sin" sense?
I mean, because, cursed could have the broad meaning of suffering from a judgment.
Adam and Eve's separation from the immortality offered by the tree of life could be considered it's own kind of curse, don't you think?
As to the ground being cursed, I haven't thought much on that. Do we really think that means the literal ground has changed in some fundamental way? I guess I've always seen that as a way of saying that man's originally intended interaction with nature has been changed in a bad way.
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Post by jaybee on Sept 13, 2014 9:15:53 GMT -8
I am just looking at the use of the word "curse" in Gen 3. The serpent is cursed, the ground is curse, but the term is not used in regard to humanity.
Cain is the first one that is said to be cursed, but then his curse is seen to come from the ground which accepted Able's blood.
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Post by robin on Sept 13, 2014 11:53:13 GMT -8
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
It appears that after the serpant is cursed, the woman is cursed in verse 6 with increased pains in childbirth, and that she shall be ruled over by her husband. Adam's curse is the cursing of the ground. If I mess up and God were to curse my garden, farm, or way of making a living, the curse is in fact mine.
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Post by jaybee on Sept 14, 2014 8:11:33 GMT -8
However, the word curse is not explicitly used.
According to the dictionary of Bible themes:
"curse
An expression of contempt or malediction for someone. To be cursed is to suffer various kinds of misfortune, sometimes to the extent of being cut off from one’s family or community, or of suffering death itself."
Other lexicons, and various sources support this meaning. It is interesting to me that humanity at this time did not find themselves under God's contempt, or to paraphrase another lexicon, humanity did not find themselves under God's explicit desire of misfortune.
When I curse someone, I am WISHING for something bad to happen to them. This is different than a judgment. While God's cursing further on might come against an individual here, or a people group there, when he is dealing with general humanity, he does not curse all mankind.
God might declare desire for misfortune on smaller groups, but he did not express that all of humanity experience misfortune.
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Post by Josh on Sept 15, 2014 16:25:25 GMT -8
Do you consider Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden an "explicit desire for their misfortune" on God's part?
I think it depends on how you are defining desire. Are you defining it as taking pleasure in something?''
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Post by jaybee on Sept 15, 2014 17:01:21 GMT -8
No, I am defining curse as something. Actually, I am letting the dictionaries and lexicons define curse for me.
Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden, while a necessity, is not described as a curse. Therefore, it would have nothing to do with desire.
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Post by Josh on Sept 15, 2014 17:13:41 GMT -8
But even when the Scripture does say that God cursed someone or some group of people, I'm not sure we should say he "desires" their misfortune. After all, He doesn't ever desire the death of the wicked. He may will it, but he doesn't delight in it. So, if curses from God are robbed of "desire", then utimately I can't see how they are any different than judgments.
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