Did God Make Man's Work More Difficult When He Cursed Adam in Genesis?

Kind of, but that curse is later revoked in Genesis

Here is the Scripture in question:

Genesis 3:17-19
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. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 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.”

I was thinking about this after reading Creation Groans; But Why? (RJS) over at Jesus Creed. That post assumes (as do most Christians I think) that the curse leveled against Adam is a curse against all work for all men. So when men encounter a difficult job, they point to Genesis and say "You see, my work is cursed".

However, there are a few things to consider. God curses the ground, not the work specifically. The context of Genesis suggests that God does this by not providing water for the ground. There may even be a clever word play in Genesis 3. When God says, "By the sweat of your brow", He may be saying that the sweat will be the only water supply that the ground will get. In other words, when God curses the ground, it's referring to a drought.

Old Testament writer's often wrote to counter the idea that God was a great God of war but that the Israelites needed another god for fertility (Read about one instance here). Genesis may be countering that same idea. By creating the flood that occurs in Genesis, the author shows that God has full control over the water supply and that no other gods of fertility should be worshiped.

Lastly, in Genesis 8, we see God revoke the curse he spoke in Genesis 3. After the flood occurs, we read this:

Genesis 8:21
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

So, the Genesis 3 curse is a temporary curse that only applied to the land and should not be taken as a curse on all of the jobs or vocations of men.

In my next post, I'll take a look at the curse directed at Eve in Genesis.