Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 3:17-18

"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;" — Genesis 3:17-18 (ASV)

To Adam (without the article, and therefore a proper name) he said— Lange thoughtfully remarks that while the woman was punished by the entrance of sorrow into the small subjective world of her womanly calling, man is punished by the derangement of the great objective world over which he was to have dominion. Instead of protecting his wife and shielding her from evil, he had passively followed her lead in disobeying God’s command; and therefore the ground, the adâmâh out of which Adam had been formed, instead of being as until now his friend and willing subject, becomes unfruitful, and must be forced by toil and labor to yield its produce.

Left to itself, it will no longer bring forth choice trees laden with generous fruit, such as Adam found in the garden, but the natural tendency will be to degenerate, until thorns only and thistles usurp the ground. Even after his struggle with resistant nature man wins for himself no paradisiacal banquet, but must eat the herb of the field (Job 30:4); and the end of this weary struggle is decay and death. In the renewed earth the golden age of paradise will return, and the tendency of nature will no longer be to decay and degeneration, but to the unceasing substitution of the nobler and the more beautiful in the place of that which was worthless and lowly (Isaiah 55:13).