Work as the Divine Curse

WORK AS THE DIVINE CURSE: TOIL AND GRACE EAST OF EDEN SCOTT HAFEMANN* There is the bad work of pride. There is also the bad work of despair— done poorly out of the failure of hope or vision. Despair is the toolittle of responsibility, as pride is the too-much. The shoddy work of despair, the pointless work of pride, equally betray Creation. They are wastes of life...Good work finds the way between pride and despair. Wendell Berry1 Men and women were created to eat and drink. Once breathing occurs, nothing else happens unless these things take place. The basic needs for food and water align humanity with every other “living creature” on the earth, with whom in the biblical account it shares the “sixth day” of creation (Gen 1:24-31). Mankind exists only because the Creator gives it breath; it continues to exist only because the Creator gives it food and water. This gift-giving at the penultimate climax of creation is “very good” (Gen 1:31) because it demonstrates, to the glory of the gift-Giver, that no matter how strong we may become we always live as dependent creatures on the one who made and sustains us.2 From the perspective of the Bible, this foundational relationship of dependence between God as Giver and Humanity as Recipient, although seldom recognized in the world, is true both pre- and post-Fall, though in radically different ways. I. CREATION: GOD’S KINGDOM, NOT HUMANITY’S WORKPLACE In line with the biblical dictum of utter human dependency, men and women were created to eat and drink, but not to work.3 I am aware that such an assertion goes against the common theological notion that “work,” albeit unimpeded by the consequences of sin, forms part of God’s original, creation mandate regarding humanity’s distinctive purpose.4 But * Scott Hafemann is Reader in New Testament, St. Mary’s College, School of Divinity, University of St. Andrews (Scotland). 1 “Healing,” What are People For? Essays (Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 1990/2010): 9-13, at 10. 2 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV. 3 I am using the verb “to work” in its commonly agreed sense of “to do, perform, practice (a deed, course of action, labor, task, business, occupation, process, etc)” (OED), whose goal it is to obtain what is needed to sustain one’s life, from, e.g., subsistence farming to hedge-fund trading. This would include living from the “work” of others via inheritance or any form of welfare/alms-giving/charity/family support. 4 To give just two examples, from widely divergent traditions, see M. Luther, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1 (trans J. N. Lenker; Minneapolis, Minn.: Lutherans in All 1-16 2 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology note carefully the sequence of events as the narrative of the creation of humanity unfolds in Genesis 1:27-31. God does not say to newly created Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion, and then I will give you every plant for food” (Gen 1:28-29), as if God is granting humanity the raw materials and means of production by which they can then build their workforce. Instead he declares, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion...” (Gen 1:28), because I have already given you everything you need (Gen 1:29, referring back to the days of creation in 1:1-25, 29-31). At creation Adam and Eve “wake up,” look around, and see that everything they need has already been given to them.5 This sequence is the first reason why the common attempt to derive a divinely granted “vocation” of work from the command in Gen 1:28 is not compelling. God does not give Adam and Eve a potentially foodproducing garden to be the platform and product of their labors, but a paradise to meet their needs. The commands to Adam and Eve in Gen 1:28 are framed by God’s prior provisions in days one to five on the one hand and by the sixth-day declaration of God’s all-sufficient provision for all living creatures on the other: And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Gen 1:29-30; RSV) The second reason why working to feed oneself is not part of the original creation decree is reflected in the divinely determined function of humanity, which is explicitly declared within the created order and where once again the sequence of the narrative is significant. Within the biblical account of creation, the command in Gen 1:28 to be fruitful, multiply, and exercise dominion is the expression of the fact that according to Gen 1:26-27 God created humanity as male and female in his image for this expressed purpose. If we want to talk about a divinely instituted “vocation” for humanity, this is it. Here too, as with the gift of food, Lands, 1904), 109 on Gen 1:26: “Had he not fallen by sin therefore, he would have eaten and drunk, worked and generated in all innocence, sinlessness and happiness”; and John Paul II’s encyclical letter, Laborem Exercens (On Human Work) (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1981), 4.1: above all the Scriptures (faith), beginning with Genesis 1:26-27, and then reason (“anthropology, palaeontology, history, sociology, psychology and so on”) teach that “The Church finds in the very first pages of the Book of Genesis the source of her conviction that work is a fundamental dimension of human existence on earth.” 5 This interpretation, based on the sequence in the narrative, has a long and venerable history; see already Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395), Making of Man 2 (PG 44:133b; 132c), who stresses that God as “maker” first prepared the earth as a royal dwelling place for the “king” and stored up the whole creation as the king’s wealth before bringing the king into the world, like a host preparing a feast for his guests before welcoming them. “‘In like manner God first prepared a ‘habitation’ adorned with ‘beauties of every kind,” then ‘brought in man’ and allowed him to ‘enjoy what was there’“ (taken and quoted from Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003], 148-149). Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 3 mankind’s vocation is a gift of divine grace. God grants Adam and Eve dominion as those created to function as his “image” or “likeness” in verses 26-27 before he calls them to exercise it in verse 28. Being created in the image of God precedes acting like God. Adam and Eve do not earn or produce or manage the garden in order to be God’s image in the world; their “vocation” to be those created in God’s image is given to them prior to anything they do. In Genesis 1:26-27, God creates male and female equally in his “likeness” and then, as a result, commands them in 1:28 to exercise “dominion” over the rest of creation. What it means for Adam and Eve to be created in God’s image is still a matter of much debate. The decisive clue contextually, however, is that granting dominion to humanity over the rest of the created order in 1:26b is the delineation of what it means to be created in God’s image or likeness in 1:26a. As the commentary on Gen 1:26 in Ps 8:3-9 makes clear, “the image” or “likeness of God” to be reflected by humanity is therefore best understood primarily as a functional reference to God’s allsufficient, self-sufficient, sovereign rule over the cosmos as his creation.6 In short, God’s “image” is that of the King, with the subdued world as his kingdom. Humanity is created to “image-forth” God’s kingship by exercising dominion in his name. That is, humanity reflects God’s glory as the divine King by ruling as his vice-regents or “royal son” over the rest of the created order (cf. Gen 5:1-3; cf. Exod 4:22-23; 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; Hos 11:1). Humanity, as the image of God, does what God does by being, so to speak, “God in person.” As Dempster puts it, “humans are referential creatures; their being automatically signifies God,” so that, by definition, to be “human” is “to bring the world under the dominion of the image of God...Another way of describing this emphasis on human dominion and dynasty would be by the simple expression ‘the kingdom of God.’”7 Thus, by virtue of God’s sovereign mandate and as a manifestation of his glory, God is to humanity what humanity is to the world (see Ps 24:1-2; 100:3; Isa 45:18; Neh 9:6). Humanity does not “have” the image of God; humanity “is” the image of God. This is why, in a move that is unprecedented in the ancient world, there is no statue of God either in the garden in Eden or in its subsequent replica in Israel’s tabernacle-temple, since mankind displays God’s image! If you want to “see” what God is like, look at humanity—humanity is the “iconic” reality of God’s presence. Given the nature of God’s command to go out and subdue the world in the days to come as a reflection of God’s character, God’s activity of provision in the past must bring with it a continuing commitment to provide for Adam and Eve in the future, a commitment signified by God’s Sabbath rest (see below). In this sense, the command to exercise dominion in the world entails simultaneously a call to trust God to provide what is needed to carry it out, which includes the gift of an abundance of food to 6 The best study of the biblical meaning and significance of the “image of God” is still that of Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), which works out the way in which the structural elements of humanity serve humanity’s function to mirror and represent God (pp. 13, 16, 67, 73). 7 Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A theology of the Hebrew Bible (NSBT 15; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 58, 62. 4 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology sustain life. The keeping of God’s command in Genesis 1:28 is nothing more than an expression of depending upon God’s provision in 1:1-25, as restated in Genesis 1:28b, 1:29, and 1:30. Humanity’s ongoing life is therefore to be an expression of the dominion of dependence. From the beginning, humanity is created to trust God for what they are to eat in order that they might multiply in accordance with God’s command. Just as earthly kings and their viceregents do not work, but are served by their subjects, so too the glory of God as “King” is manifest through mankind’s dominion over the rest of creation as an expression of their dependence on the sufficiency of God’s provision. This is why, as an interpretation of Gen 1:26-28, Ps 8:1, 9 frames the glory and honor of mankind’s dominion, who has been “crowned” to rule over the earth, with declarations of God’s majesty, since the former reveals the latter. For our purposes, it is crucial to keep in view that the majesty of the divine “King,” like his human counterparts, is manifested not by his having to work to meet his own needs, but by virtue of his ability to provide freely for those dependent upon him. “Kings,” by definition, do not work—they provide out of the abundance of their possessions (secured, of course, by the power of their military might and the loyalty of their subjects). For this reason, yhwh creates not by working in the sense we know it in this fallen world, but by miraculously speaking his world and its provisions into existence. In turn, humanity was not created to manage God’s creation as “junior-executives” partnering with God’s “work,” as if its job was to develop God’s raw materials into finished products by adding their efforts to his. Once again, the “image of God” in Gen 1:26 is not an agrarian work-metaphor but an imperial one. For as Meredith Kline summarizes the point of Genesis 9:6, “As image of God, man is a royal son with the judicial function appertaining to kingly office.”8 As the royal crown of creation, humanity’s vocation is not to work in the world to meet its needs, but to be supported by the created order as its rulers. To exercise dominion over the rest of the created world does not mean working as agriculturally-based entrepreneurs in order to secure for themselves something they do not already have, but to rule over God’s creation in a state of continual dependence upon what the Creator gives to them. II. HUMANITY’S ACTIVITY IN THE GARDEN IN EDEN What then, as God’s “image” placed in the garden, was Adam (and later, Eve, as his partner) doing in the garden before the Fall if they were not working to feed themselves? The answer is given in Gen 2:15, which reads: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work (or to till) it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden....” 8 Images of the Spirit (S. Hamilton, Mass.: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 1986 [1980]), 28. Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 5 In contrast to what we have seen in Gen 1:24-31, this text certainly gives the impression that Adam was working in the garden and that what God gave him was the fruit of his labors. This seems even more clear when this text is matched with its context in Gen 2:5-9, which declares: When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, (6) and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—(7) then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. (8) And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. (9) And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. It appears as if God made the man to work in the garden and, indeed, did not plant anything in it until the man was ready to go to work. Read in this way, both the existence of the raw materials and their transformation into a life-sustaining yield, though finding their creative origin in God, are dependent on the availability of a productive work-force who will farm it as an essential aspect of their “vocation.” Every translation, however, is a commentary in disguise. Here the commentary may be misleading. The issue is how we are to translate the two infinitives le’obdah ulesomrah which are usually translated “to work it” or “to till it” (le’obdah) and “to keep it” (lesomrah]).9 The problem with this predominant translation is twofold: 1) the narrative as a whole seems to indicate that the first “work” done in the garden takes place after the Fall as part of the curse (Genesis 3:23); 2) if translated this way, the final ה) ּh) is taken to be a feminine pronominal suffix (“it”), referring to the garden (gan). But the word for garden (gan) is probably masculine, so there is a mismatch between the pronoun and its antecedent; in Hebrew, pronouns should agree with their antecedent in gender and number.10 The attempt to take this suffix to refer to the feminine word for “ground” used in 2:9 (adamah), does not solve the problem, since this word is too far removed from the verse and it jumps over the very natural reference to the garden in verse 15. The LXX translators saw this problem and rendered this phrase ἐργάζεσθαι αὐτὸν καὶ φυλάσσειν (ergazesthai auton kai fulassein), which takes the verbs to mean “to work” and “to guard” respectively, and exercises the liberty of changing the feminine pronoun to the masculine in order to solve the grammatical problem. 9 What follows is an expansion of my previous treatment of the translation of Gen 2:15 in my The God of Promise and the Life of Faith: Understanding the Heart of the Bible (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001), 228n.1. 10 Cf. BDB, 171; HALOT, 198, which questions the gender here given its apparent mismatch in its context. 6 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology Seeing this problem in the text, some scholars, ancient and modern, have offered another possible translation, as recently argued by U. Cassuto and supported by J. Sailhammer.11 a) The issue is whether or not the final ה) h) in the two verb forms contains the mappiq, i.e. whether it should be read as ה ּor simply as ה .The mappiq (the dot in the middle of the letter) gives this final letter the status of a consonant and changes its significance, so that with the mappiq it is the feminine suffix of a direct object (“it”), while without the “dot” it becomes part of the verb itself. It would then be the h that is sometimes added to infinitives. In fact, Cassuto points out that there are several Hebrew MSS which do not have the mappiq. So the issue is whether or not the same two verbs are to be read as having the suffix (with mappiq) or as infinitives without suffixes (without the mappiq), i.e. without direct objects at all. b) If taken without the mappiq, the verbs would mean, “to serve [God] and to keep/obey/guard (either “guarding [the garden]” or “obeying/keeping [the commandments]”)”. Both of these meanings are also well attested.12 c) Moreover, Cassuto points out that later rabbinic teaching read the text in this way, arguing that the command in Gen 2:15 referred to the offering of sacrifices in the garden (!) because it said that man was “to serve God,” which parallels Exod 3:12, while the command, “to keep,” in Gen 2:15 parallels Num 28:2, both of which are seen to refer to worshipping God, the latter with sacrifice (cf. Genesis Rabbah 16:5). These parallels aside, this shows that the rabbis read the text as referring to worshipping God and keeping his commands.13 However, inasmuch as the translation issue cannot be determined decisively based on its morphology, John H. Walton has sought to solve the problem by looking at the lexicography of Gen 2:15 against its ANE background.14 He too argues that in accordance with their most common usage the meaning of the two verbs in view, regardless of how we translate them, are best taken here not to refer to agricultural tasks, but to “human service to God” (cf. Exod 3:12; 4:23; 23:33; Num 3:7- 10). “Working the Garden” could be in either category, “depending on whether it is understood as a place where things grow [cf. Deut 28:39: 11 U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Vol. 1 (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1961), 122-123, and supported by J. Sailhammer, Genesis (EBC, 2; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990), 44-45, 47-48. 12 See BDB, 713, 1036-7. 13 See too Cassuto’s references, Genesis, 122-123, to other Ancient Near East traditions in which the purpose of man’s creation in paradise is to serve God, while lesser deities where given the task of guarding heaven and Sheol; in the biblical narrative this corresponding guarding function on earth is entrusted to humanity, whereas after the Fall it too is given in Gen 3:24 to the cherubim (cf. Ezek 28:14, 16). 14 Genesis (NIVAC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 166-174, esp. 172- 173. Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 7 working a vineyard] or a place where God dwells” [cf. Num 8:15: working in relationship to the Tent of Meeting].15 In line with this reading, scholars have shown how the depictions of creation in Gen 1-2, against their ancient near-eastern backdrop, combine to portray the garden in Eden as a reflection of the throne-room in the heavenly temple-palace of God’s presence. This same garden imagery is consequently also found in the descriptions both of the promised land and of Israel’s tabernacle/temple as the places of God’s subsequent presence outside Eden.16 So the decisive factor in Gen 2:15 is the contextual meaning of “keeping” or “guarding” (smr), which is often used of the Levitical responsibility of guarding sacred space, whereas it is used in agricultural contexts only when crops are being guarded from people, enemies, or animals, which is not the case here. Moreover, when these two verbs and their corresponding nouns are used together in the same context, as they are in Gen 2:15, they always refer either to the Israelites “serving” God and “guarding/keeping” God’s word (10xs) or to priests who are keeping their charge in the tabernacle/temple (for the two verbs used together for Levitical service, see Num 3:7-9; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chr 23:32; Ezek 44:14).17 So, like the later priests who served God in his presence, at creation mankind too is given the task of serving and keeping/guarding God’s rule as expressed in his promises and commands by exercising dominion in his name through obedience to his word (note how the command of God in 2:16-17 is based upon the provision of God in 2:15, just as it was in 1:26-30). Mankind’s task is not to till the garden, but to keep the command of 2:16-17, which centers on God’s provisions in 2:6-9. Indeed, if Adam’s functional identity in 2:15 “should always best be referred to as a ‘priest-king’...”,18 then it becomes significant that neither priests nor kings “work” to feed themselves, especially not as gardeners or farmers.19 15 Walton, Genesis, 172. 16 For just one example of the many parallels between the garden in Eden, the tabernacle/temple and the promised land, cf. the parallel descriptions of the creation account and the construction of the tabernacle (cf. Gen 1:31; 2:1; 2:2; 2:3 with Exod 39:43; 39:32; 40:33; 39:43), the respective references to the seven speech-acts involved (Gen 1:3-26 and Exod 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12) and the pattern of sevens attending to the building and dedication of the temple (1 Kgs 6:38; 8:31-55). For these parallels and an extensive development of many more, see G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, A Biblical Theology of The Dwelling Place of God (NSBT, 17; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 29-80 (texts above from pp. 60-61, following Levenson, Weinfeld, Walton, Sailhamer, Fishbane and Blenkinsopp). 17 Beale, Temple, 67, following Wenham, Kline and Walton; also of interest is the fact that Barn. 4:11; 6 reads Gen 1:28 and 2:15 in this way, thus showing the existence of this interpretation in early Christianity (pp. 67-68n.91). Though Beale stresses Adam’s role as “the archetypal priest who served in and guarded (or ‘took care of ’) God’s first temple” (p. 68), he maintains the traditional reading of the two verbs, arguing that Adam’s “gardening” was a priestly activity since the garden was a sanctuary (p. 68); nevertheless, Beale emphasizes that “the task of Adam in Genesis 2:15 involved more than mere spadework in the dirt of a garden,” including “guarding” the sanctuary from Satan (p. 69)– though I find this latter interpretation hard to derive from the traditional reading. 18 Beale, Temple, 70, who points to the separation of these two functions after the Fall and their reuniting in the eschatological expectation of a messianic priest-king (Zech 6:12-13). 19 Like Adam in his service to God prior to the Fall, the Levitical priests who 8 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology Once Gen 2:15 is understood in this way, an appropriate contrast between mankind’s task in the world pre- and post-Fall is maintained. Prior to the Fall mankind is to worship and obey God by exercising dependence upon his provision and by rendering obedience to the commandments to eat of all the trees God has given except one. “Work” comes into the picture only after the Fall, in which mankind is cursed with the consequence of what it wanted, namely, the burden of having to provide for itself on its own in accordance with its own decisions regarding what is good and evil. Prior to the Fall, mankind was to trust in the promise of God’s provisions, on the basis of which he/she was to exercise dominion over God’s creation as those made in his image. The consequence of the Fall is a reversal of this original, ideal situation. Hence, in Sailhammer’s words, The importance of these two infinitives can be seen in the fact that the narrative returns to precisely them in its summary conclusion of the state of mankind after the Fall. The man and the woman were created ‘for worship’ (le’obdah, 2:15), but after the Fall they were thrown out of the garden ‘to work the ground’ (la’abod ‘et ha adamah, 3:23). In the same way they were created ‘for obedience’ (lesomrah, 2:15), but after the Fall they were ‘kept’ (lismor, 3:24) from the tree of life.”20 This play on words is not just poetic, it is crucial for our understanding of humanity’s identity as a “worker.” In view of this reading of Gen 2:15, the description in Gen 2:5 pertains to the period after the Fall, when God supplied water from above and man worked the “bushes” and “small plants” on the ground below. In contrast, 2:6-9 describes the period before the Fall, when the Lord God watered the earth from below, the Lord God planted the garden in Eden, and the Lord God caused “to spring up every tree” (note the emphasis on the threefold repetition of the subject in 2:7-9). If anyone in the narrative is the “gardener,” it is God! Whatever we want to call humanity’s activity in the garden before the Fall (I prefer, “the significant and meaningful ordering and protection of God’s creation as the Lord continued to lead and provide for his people”), it was not a labor designed to provide food for itself, but the “obedience of faith” in service to God which was designed to reflect and reveal his honor as the Provider of all things. The way in which this “worship” took place was to acknowledge God’s glory as the Giver by enjoying everything that God had supplied as sufficient (Gen 1:26-30; 2:6-9, 15). Hence, in exercising dominion over the world there was no “need” to eat of that which the Lord God had prohibited as unnecessary for one’s ongoing life (Gen 2:16-17). serve in God’s sanctuary are not given their own land as one of the twelve tribes to farm or work in other ways. Rather, they are to live by depending on the gifts, sacrifices, and offerings brought into the temple and on the cities and lands given them by the other tribes; that is to say, they live from what God provides (cf. Num 18:8-32; 35:1-8). 20 Sailhamer, Genesis, 48. Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 9 III. BREAKING THE SABBATH: GOD’S REST AND MAN’S WORK The mandate to exercise dominion over God’s creation by obeying God’s commands, which is made possible by God’s provisions, constitutes the kingdom of God. As such, it fulfills God’s mission of manifesting his glory as Creator-Provider. To that end, the God-centered nature of humanity’s activity in the garden cannot be clearer. Briefly put, the “kingdom of God” is the rule of God (the exercise of his sovereignty), which creates the reign of God (the sphere of his sovereignty) in God’s realm (the space of his sovereignty), all of which is reflected in the obedience of his people who are commanded to enjoy what God has provided. To this end, humanity was not put in the midst of the garden to work God’s creation; God puts the garden in the midst of creation to feed humanity. The establishment of the kingdom of God at creation reaches its climax when God “rests” on the seventh day, thereby declaring the splendor of his sovereign rule as demonstrated in the sufficiency of his provisions—God “rests” not because he is exhausted, but as the sign that there is nothing more to provide. When read against its own historical-cultural backdrop, for God to sit serenely on his throne in his own garden, rather than having to go out to do battle against the enemies that threaten his “image,” is the welcomed posture of a king at “rest” (cf. God’s corresponding promise to David in 2 Sam 7:1-11 and God’s taking up his “resting place” in the temple in Ps 132:7-8, 13-1421). The King’s rest on the “Sabbath” day of creation declares the good news that under his reign everything in his realm is as it should be.22 In Eden, God keeps the Sabbath as a result of providing for his people; in response, Adam and Eve are to eat only from God’s explicitly provided produce (Gen 2:16; 3:2) as the expression of their trust in the sufficiency of his provisions (Gen 1:31). Obedience to this command will glorify God as the one who gives all good gifts and prohibits all evil (cf. the creation imagery in James 1:16-18). This Sabbath-relationship between God and humanity in the preFall garden is reflected in the description of Adam’s activity in Gen 2:15 as well. For as Sailhamer again points out, there is an important change in vocabulary for the Hebrew word often translated “put” in 2:15 over against the word used for “put” in 2:8. As he explains, Unlike verse 8, where the author uses a common term for “put,” in verse 15 he uses a term that he elsewhere has reserved for two special uses: God’s “rest” or “safety” which he gives to human beings in the 21 I am indebted for this latter reference to Beale, Temple, 61-62, following Walton. Beale points as well to 1 Kgs 5:4-5; 8:56; 1 Chron 6:31; 22:9-10, 18-19; 23:25-26; 28:2; 2 Chron 6:41; Ps 95:11; Isa 57:15; 66:1; Judith 9:8. For the development of this theme in the ANE and within the biblical narrative, see Beale, Temple, 60-66. 22 So too Beale, Temple, 62: “God’s rest both at the conclusion of creation in Genesis 1-2 and later in Israel’s temple indicates not mere inactivity but that he had demonstrated his sovereignty over the forces of chaos (e.g., the enemies of Israel) and now has assumed a position of kingly rest further revealing his sovereign power” (emphasis mine). Cf. too Exod 15:17; Ps 47:8: “God’s sitting in the temple is an expression of his sovereign rest or reign” (p. 63, emphasis his). 10 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology land (e.g., Gen 19:16; Deut 3:20; 12:10; 25:19), and the “dedication” of something before the presence of the Lord (Exod 16:33-34; Lev 16:23; Num17:4; Deut 26:4, 10). Both senses of the term appear to lie behind the author’s use of the word in verse 15. The man was “put” into the Garden where he could “rest” and be “safe,” and the man was “put” into the Garden “in God‘s presence” where he could have fellowship with God ([Gen] 3:8).23 God’s Sabbath “rest” of provision creates the context in which man “rests” in safety in order to fellowship with God, not in order to work hard to meet his own needs (if “tilling” the garden took no real effort, would it be “work”?). The two states of “rest” correspond to one another, the character of the former is reflected in the image of the latter. Nonetheless, in a tragedy beyond description, Eve and Adam, driven by their own desires for independence on which the cunning of the serpent capitalized, broke the Sabbath-rest by disobeying God’s commandments (Gen 3:6-7). As a result of their “fall” into “the disobedience of disbelief,” God’s intention to establish his kingdom throughout the world remained unfulfilled. In its place came death, mediated through a threefold “curse” on the serpent, the woman, and the man—each of which entailed a corresponding consequence for the rest of the created order. For our purposes it is important to realize that in these curses the great “pain” for the woman that now accompanies childbirth from a cursed womb (Gen 3:16) matches the “pain” for the man that accompanies eating from a cursed ground (Gen 3:17). Both sources of life are now working against those they were created to sustain. In the latter case, as a consequence of the Fall, mankind can no longer “eat freely” or “surely” from the land (Gen 2:16). It is not that man’s work is now cursed, as if his pre-Fall labors merely get harder as a result of the curse. Rather, the curse is that he must now work to eat and do so in a fallen world that is in rebellion against those created and called to rule over it (cf. Isa 65:17; Rom 8:22-24; Rev 21:1). Instead of ruling over creation forever in dependence on God’s provisions, Adam and Eve are now cast out of the garden to be on their own in the independent self-reliance they craved, cursed to live and to give life in pain until they die. In sum, “‘working the ground’ is said to be a result of the Fall, and the narrative suggests that the author has intended such a punishment to be seen as an ironic reversal of humanity’s original purpose....”24 Life east of Eden will no longer be a God-directed activity designed to mirror his sovereign munificence, but a self-centered labor consumed by its own need to survive. To use economic language, eating in a fallen world has now become an exchange function brought about by maximizing the utilities of mankind’s sweat-soaked, hard work, until that 23 John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992), 100. On Adam’s “rest” in Gen 2:15, cf. the “putting” of Adam in the garden in Gen 2:15, with its connotation of rest, with the placing of furniture, images and God’s ‘resting place’ in the heavenly temple in 2 Chron 4:8; 2 Kgs 17:29; Zech 5:5-11; Ps 132:7-8, 14; Isa 66:1, and with the “rest” to be found in the promised land in Exod 33:14; Deut 3:20; 12:10; 25:9; 2 Sam 7:1-6; Ps 95:11 (Beale, Temple, 70). 24 Sailhamer, Pentateuch as Narrative, 101. Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 11 which was designed to support life becomes a grave (Gen 3:18-19). For under the curse, we must find ways to manage “the disposal of scarce means to achieve competing ends.”25 IV. GRACE OUTSIDE THE GARDEN Yet, despite humanity’s sin, God is merciful. The woman’s pain-filled birth will still bring forth life (note that we are not told Eve’s name as “the mother of all living” until after the curse, cf. Gen 3:20!), leading to the messianic seed that will redeem the world (Gen 3:15). So too, the man’s pain-filled work will still bring forth plants to eat, leading under the rule of the Messiah to a prayer for God’s provision of “daily bread” (Matt 6:11). Along the path of this redemption from mankind’s slavery to sin and its consequences, Israel is delivered from her toil as slaves in Egypt (Exod 1:8- 14; 5:4-18). At the exodus Israel becomes the “new creation” people of God, redeemed to reveal God’s glory as King through her faith-filled obedience to his commands, which are made possible by God’s provisions (Isa 43:1-2). To signify this redemption from slavery (forced working for others is the final expression of the curse), keeping the “Sabbath” first established in the garden in Eden becomes the sign of the Sinai covenant at the heart of the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:8-11), with the death penalty once again levied against those who break it (Exod 31:13, 17; 35:1-3; Num 15:32-36; Ezek 20:12, 20). The Sabbath consequently frames the Exodus narrative. On the one hand, even before Israel arrives at Mt Sinai the practice of the Sabbath is already established in the wilderness with the provision of manna and quail (Exod 16:1-36). Thus, in Exod 16:28- 29 keeping the Sabbath is equated with God’s commandments and laws even before the Law is given. On the other hand, before Moses comes down from Mt Sinai for the last time the last thing the Lord says is a reiteration of the command to keep the Sabbath (Exod 31:12-17). As it was at creation, so too at Sinai: the Sabbath is God’s declaration of his ongoing commitment to meet the needs of this people (Exod. 31:16; cf. the parallel between God’s rest at creation and Israel’s rest after the Exodus in Exod 20:8-11). Conversely, keeping the Sabbath was for Israel a symbolic, public demonstration of her dependence on God to lead, guide, and provide for his people. We must not forget how unusual it was in the ancient world to take a day “off.” In the ancient world, people worked seven days a week. Before the Fall, since God was the “worker” (a condescending act of grace on the part of the divine King!), God was the one who kept the Sabbath by ceasing from his labors due to the perfection of his provision. After the Fall, mankind as the “worker” could never cease from its labors due to the curse of self-support. Yet, already before the Flood, God had promised to redeem the faithful remnant of Noah’s lineage from their work: 25 Gordon Menzies, “Economics as identity,” in Christian Theology and Market Economics, ed. Ian R. Harper and Samuel Gregg (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008): 94-109, at 98, who offers this as the subject matter of the discipline of economic science, following the definition of Robbins. 12 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen 5:28-29). After the flood, God takes the first step in keeping this promise by restating to Noah, almost verbatim, the same mandate given to Adam and Eve at creation; the differences now reflect the continuing impact of sin in the world (cf. Gen 9:1-7 with Gen 1:26-30). In a continuing fulfillment of this promise, those subsequently redeemed from slavery at the Exodus therefore cease from their labors on the Sabbath as a sign of God’s renewed commitment in the midst of the fallen world to be their God and as an expression of their identity as his people. There is no evidence biblically that the Sabbath was ever intended to be a time of physical and psychological rest after a hard week at work in order to be refreshed for the work to come in the week ahead. The purpose of the Sabbath is not to help Israel work harder, as if the goal of worship is to make work more effective. Rather, the Sabbath was a weekly “holy-day” or “holiday” from work itself—a symbolic statement that the week’s work, though a ground for gratitude in an upside down world, is not humanity’s rightful or ultimate calling. On the Sabbath, the faithful who trust God to provide symbolically give the universe back to God, its rightful and sovereign owner. Just as God kept the Sabbath by ceasing from his “work” at the climax of the creation-provision, so too Israel is to stop working on the seventh day as a sign that, as a result of her rescue from the toil of slavery, she is once again trusting God to meet her daily needs, albeit now in and through a fallen world as attested by the need to work the other six (Deut 5:12-15; cf. Deut 4:7). The Sabbath is a perpetual response of faith (Ezek 20:11-12). The repeated failure of the majority of Israel to keep the Sabbath by not trusting in the Lord, even though she ceased her labors on the last day of the week, thus revealed her persistent, hardened heart of unbelief. Israel was different from the nations around her symbolically (she “kept” the Sabbath by not working), but not in reality (she did not trust in yhwh, which the Sabbath was intended to symbolize). Indeed, Ezekiel declares that Israel broke the covenant by profaning the Sabbath before reaching Sinai (Ezek. 20:13; cf. Exod. 16:27-30), after Sinai (Ezek. 20:16, 20-21) and during Israel’s history in the land (Ezek. 22:8, 26; 23:38; cf. Neh 13:15- 18; Jer 17:14-23; Amos 8:4-6; Hos 2:11). Eventually, Israel’s breaking of the Sabbath led to God’s judgment in the exile (Ezek. 20:23-24; 24:1- 14). So in looking forward, Ezekiel sees that Israel’s future restoration by God’s grace will encompass a return to a proper keeping of the Sabbath (Ezek. 44:24; 45:17; 46:3-4). V. GOD’S GRACE IN HUMANITY’S WORK-WEEK: THREE PERSPECTIVES Perspective One: The consummation of salvation history at the Messiah’s “second coming” will entail not a redemption of work, but a final rescue from work. In the age to come, though filled with the renewed Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 13 activities of ruling as God’s vice-regents in a new heavens and earth, God’s people will not “work”; God will once again feed his people. Now, as the proleptic inauguration of this final redemption, the first coming of the Messiah calls for a life of dependence on the lordship of Jesus Christ during the “in between time.” Jesus’ declaration that the Son of Man is “‘lord even of the Sabbath’” (Mark 2:28) is to be understood in this light. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus uses his favorite title for himself, “the Son of Man,” on only two significant occasions during his early Galilean ministry, in which he is preaching and acting to establish his claim that the kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:14-15): first in regard to his authority to forgive sins (2:10) and then in regard to his authority over the Sabbath (2:28). These are astonishing claims of divine authority and identity. With the pronouncement in Mark 2:28, the Son of Man is equated with God’s divine identity both at creation and under the Sinai covenant! His healings, exorcisms and miraculous feedings of those who follow him, like the Lord’s actions for Israel in the wilderness, support the validity of these claims, which together constitute the significance of his rule and reign among his people. Jesus forgives his people’s sins in order to make entrance into the kingdom possible, which is God’s prerogative alone. He then commits himself, as the Lord did to Adam and Eve in the garden and to Israel in the wilderness, to provide whatever his people need (not want!) to carry out their calling as members of the kingdom. There is no promise of prosperity in this gospel, however; in a sin-soaked world, divine providence,26 and Jesus’ lordship, can both lead one into situations of intense suffering and deprivation. Yet, in both forgiveness and provision, Jesus, as “Lord of the Sabbath,” is now doing what God the Father did under the old covenant—even when that provision may consist only of God’s presence to sustain us! Thus, according to Mark 2:23-3:6, for Jesus to be “Lord of the Sabbath” means engaging his power as the messianic Son of Man from Daniel 7 to meet his disciples’ needs as the One who works on the Sabbath, even as David in his royal role met the needs of his men when they were hungry (Mark 2:25-26; cf. 1 Sam 21:1-6). In so doing, Jesus demonstrated the meaning of the Sabbath itself. He also made clear that as the longawaited Davidic Messiah he was the one who was reestablishing a Sabbath rest between God and his people, now and into the age to come. The inauguration of this renewed ‘Sabbath relationship’ between God and his people through the Messiah will one day be consummated in the full Sabbath rest of the eschaton for those who keep the new covenant through their dependence on God (Heb 4:1-13). In response to Jesus’ authority as “King,” God’s people now “keep the Sabbath” everyday by trusting God to meet their needs in the midst of the fallen world. Such confidence expresses itself in a lack of worry over one’s own welfare, which keeps one from worshipping the identity, status and security provided by a job, and in a corresponding concern to meet the needs of others, which the Bible calls “love.” For when the new covenant reality arrives to which the old covenant symbols like the 26 Where and when one is born makes a huge difference in this life! 14 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology “Sabbath” pointed, the symbols themselves become a matter of preference or spiritual discipline and are no longer obligatory (Rom 14:5-6; cf. this principle in relation to circumcision in 1 Cor. 7:19 and to ‘kosher’ constraints in Rom 14:2-6). What counts is the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5) to which they pointed. Within the context of a redeemed trust in Jesus’ love as the “Lord of the Sabbath,” embodied in loving others, there can be a “moral” dimension to work in all its variety. But this dimension is not to be found in a natural theology in which work becomes an intrinsic and universal training tool for humanity, or in a view of human nature that sees work to be an extension of the self-actualization of human freedom.27 Its morality is found only in the way in which one’s work becomes part of the obedience of faith that expresses itself in gratitude to God for making such work possible and in mercy toward others as the extension of God’s merciful provision for us. Perspective Two: Given Jesus’ lordship over the “Sabbath,” work must not be glorified or set forth as the source of humanity’s sense of fulfillment or identity, thereby falling prey to what Wendell Berry calls “the bad work,” the “too much responsibility” of pride. As Gordon Menzies observes over against a positivistic science of economics that ignores all human attitudes as merely non-factual “values,” “The personal or social goal of increasing command over resources is potentially idolatrous, according to Scripture. It follows from this ‘fact’ that those ‘in Adam’ will easily find themselves worshipping it.”28 Given this “fact,” work must be kept in its place outside of the garden. For most people in the world most of the time, work is a judgment which, more often than not, is drudgery (when thinking of “work,” don’t think of Bill Gates, think of nameless peasants stamping rice patties in Cambodia, growing millet in Chad, making clothing in Bangladesh, cleaning the streets and sewers in India, etc.). Nevertheless, as a mercy-filled judgment, work is still to be received with humility and gratitude for its lifesustaining productivity, despite its origin in idolatry. By an act of universal grace, God’s providence brings continued productivity to a world that deserves only wrath in every generation (Gen 8:20-9:17). It is grace upon grace that many jobs also provide personal fulfillment, challenge, venues for creativity and opportunity to serve others. It is both a curse and a gift to have a job. And insofar as all “social arrangements that organize 27 For a contrary position, see Michael J. Miller, “Business as a Moral Enterprise,” in Christian Theology and Market Economics, ed. Ian R. Harper and Samuel Gregg (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008): 113-128, at, e.g., 120: “In the Christian tradition, business has unique moral and spiritual value because it is a type of human work and an element of vocation of the human person,” following John Paul II. Miller is arguing against the view taken here, seeing it instead as existing in the garden in Eden and thus as “a constitutive element of man’s personhood; a means by which he lives out his humanity” (p. 121). Hence, “Business is a moral good because persons engage in it” (p. 126). Though he takes the idea that work is a result of the Fall to be “commonly believed” (p. 121), my experience of late has been that work is more often seen to be part of the so-called “cultural mandate” given to humanity at creation–a view common to both Roman Catholic and Reformation perspectives. 28 Menzies, “Economics,” 107. Hafemann: Work As The Divine Curse 15 consumption and production ... (have) an identity-molding function,” the recognition of the dual nature of the fallen work-week should keep us from “being pressed into the mold of ‘economic man.’“29 In its place, work is to be carried out not in the hope of its own rewards from this world, but in the hope of redemption in the next. The faithful work and industry commended in Proverbs 30 must therefore be salted with the attitude manifest in Eccl 2:22-26 (RSV): What has a man from all the toil and strain with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of pain, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his mind does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the man who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. Perspective Three: Working faithfully under the Sabbath-lordship of Christ reveals God’s redemption in the midst of this evil age when, as the embodiment of love, God’s people go beyond working for themselves to working for others: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph 4:28). This work of love is the antidote to Wendell Berry’s “bad work of despair,” which is “done poorly out of the failure of hope or vision,” the kind of despair that is “the too-little of responsibility.” Though Paul contemplated how much better it would be to gain Christ through death, he nevertheless concluded in his desire to live like Christ that remaining in the fallen world would be more necessary, since it would mean “fruitful labor” for the sake of others (cf. Phil 1:21-26). As its corollary, Paul commands the Thessalonians that those unwilling to work should not eat (2 Thess 3:10). Paul again offered himself as the counter-example, since “with toil and labor...(he) worked night and day” in order to pay for his bread rather than burden the Thessalonians (2 Thess 3:8). He consequently exhorted the idle “in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living” (2 Thess 3:12). To quote Berry one last time, “Good work finds the way between pride and despair.” 29 Menzies, “Economics,” 94. By “economic man” Menzies means the identity invented by John Stuart Mill (1836, 1844), in which one’s self-understanding is shaped by the acquisition of wealth as the main and acknowledged goal of behavior (p. 97). 30 Cf. ὀκνηρός (okneros; “lazy”) in the LXX of Proverbs, where it is used in the context of work and industry as part of the opposite of godly, prudent conduct. It describes the slothful person who lacks resolution to go to work (6:6, 9), who allows difficulties to stop him (20:4), or does not move from will to deed (21:25). The wife of Prov 31 is the opposite of this, due in part to her pleasure in work (31:27). See too Prov 14:23. For these points, see BDAG, 702; F. Hauck, TDNT 5 (1967):166-167, and Peter T. O’Brien, Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 352n.34. 16 Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology The reason Paul must lay down this rule is not economical, but eschatological, or better put, it is due to an over-realized eschatology that believed that the “day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess 2:2). The Thessalonians had the right theology, but the wrong timing. Believers in the Thessalonian church were ceasing to work because they assumed that the redeemed world, in which there would be no work, was right around the corner. But if work were our vocation, first granted in the perfection of the pre-Fall garden and then perfected again in the new creation, the imminent end of the fallen world would have energized them to work double shifts, not to quit working. For Paul, however, not working in this age was not the result of an under-appreciated understanding of work as our true vocation, but the consequence of trying to live beyond the curse prematurely. Instead, as Calvin put it, the believer’s confidence and true sense of “calling” as he or she faces life between creation and new creation is quite different: Again, it will be no slight relief from cares, labors, troubles, and other burdens for a man to know that God is his guide in all these things. The magistrate will discharge his functions more willingly; the head of the household will confine himself to his duty; each man will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness, and anxieties in his way of life, when he has been persuaded that the burden was laid upon him by God. From this will arise also a singular consolation: that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned ever precious in God’s sight.31 31 Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill (trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Philadelpia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1960), III.X.6 (p. 725).