Bible Strands
Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Adam directly, delivering the final clause of the curse on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the fall (Gen 3:17–19).
The words — Ze'at apphekha (זֵעַת אַפֶּיךָ) is a fixed idiom, "sweat of your face," anchoring the labor in the body rather than in an abstract effort. The ground (ha-adama) shares its root with the man (ha-adam), binding the two in a single sentence.
The thread — The dust-to-dust formula recurs in Psalms 104:29, Job 34:15, and Ecclesiastes 12:7, each framing death as a return to source material.
Why it lands — The word "until" (ad) makes labor a finite span bounded by death; the verse asks the reader to hold work and mortality in one clause rather than separating them.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Job 34:15 all flesh would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.
- Psalms 104:29 When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to dust.
- Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- Psalms 90:3 You return man to dust, saying, “Return, O sons of mortals.”
- Ephesians 4:28 He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing good with his own hands, that he may have something to share with the one in need.
- Ecclesiastes 3:20 All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.
- 1 Corinthians 15:21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
- Genesis 18:27 Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes—
- Genesis 23:4 “I am a foreigner and an outsider among you. Give me a burial site among you so that I can bury my dead.”