THE CURSE ON THE GROUND

Consider the judgment pronounced on Adam. He was told: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread.”​—Gen. 3:17-19.

This curse on the ground was purposeful. By sinning, Adam had lost the right to share in transforming the uncultivated land outside the garden of Eden into a paradise. It was, therefore, a just pronouncement on God’s part to make it impossible for Adam to produce even a semblance of such a delightful place.

Furthermore, Jehovah God fully understood the effect that sinning would have on his intelligent creatures. He knew that, unless there were impeding factors, imperfect humans would quickly plunge ever deeper into a course of degradation. In this connection, the curse on the ground may well have served to retard man’s sinful inclinations from speedily coming to a head. How? Because he would have to wrest a living from the ground through painful and exhausting labor, Adam would certainly have less time and energy to use for harmful activities.

As long as the curse on the ground continued, its wearying effects were keenly felt by Adam’s descendants. This is evident from the prophetic words spoken by Lamech at the birth of Noah: “This one will bring us comfort from our work and from the pain of our hands resulting from the ground which Jehovah has cursed.”​—Gen. 5:29.

By means of a global Flood, Jehovah God destroyed wicked men and women whose violent ways threatened to interfere with the due fulfillment of his purpose to have a paradise earth inhabited by humans who loved his sovereignty.​—2 Pet. 3:5, 6.

Only righteous Noah and seven members of his family survived the flood. As these deluge survivors had shown a heartfelt desire to serve God, they did not need to be punished by means of a new special curse on the ground. The pre-deluge curse was lifted in fulfillment of Lamech’s prophetic words regarding Noah. Then, too, in view of the reduced human life-span after the flood, the hardship that would have been imposed by a curse on the ground would evidently have made life more difficult for the sinful descendants of Noah.