What Does Genesis 3:19 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The ground that receives your laboring body is the same ground from which your human life is taken.
THE MEANING
Your bread comes through the ground and the sweat of your face, while your body remains bound to the soil from which it comes. The same ground sustains your daily life and receives you at its end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that you are self-made and sustained by effort alone is undone here: bread depends on the ground, and your body returns to it.
THE ROOT
אֲדָמָה
adamah
GROWS FROM
אדם
To be red or reddish, evoking the color of soil.
The shared consonants link אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground/soil) with אָדָם (adam, human), so the return is to the material carried in the name. אָדֹם (adom, red) keeps the earth’s reddish color in the same word-family: the ground is part of what names the human.
ALSO GROWS
adam: Human; the ground-being.
אָדָם
The name shares its consonants with adamah, tying human identity to the ground from which the body is taken.
adom: Red, ruddy.
אָדֹם
This branch preserves the soil’s reddish color within the same word-family, making the link between human and ground concrete.
THE PATTERN
Human life is earth-shaped: the ground forms the body, sustains it, and receives it back.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis 2:7 names the beginning with dust (עָפָר, ʿafar, dust) and ground (אֲדָמָה, adamah, soil). Genesis 3:19 folds that origin into the destination: the ground that forms the human body is the ground it returns to.
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