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In Genesis 3:17, Yah pronounced a curse on the ground because of Adam’s disobedience. The passage states:

 

Genesis 3:17-19 And to Adam he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree from which I forbade you to eat, the ground shall be cursed on your account. In pain you shall eat from it all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles shall sprout for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow [nostrils] you shall eat bread, until your return to the ground. For from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

As a result of this curse, the man and the woman are expelled from the Garden with its variety of fruit-bearing trees. They are sent out into a barren world (Genesis 2:5–6), in which the ground is their enemy. Their efforts at toiling no longer yield them the lush fruits of paradise, but the thorns and thistles of frustration. 

 

They are forced to work harder than they ever have before, with the sweat of their exertion pouring down their nose. Even then, they will collapse into the hostile ground, or earn the measliest of crusts that will send them foraging for any wild plant in the open field that they can find. And in the end they will die a miserable death.

This sorry situation may explain why Yah finds Cain’s offering of the “fruit of the ground” despicable (Genesis 4:3–5). Cain could not cultivate anything meriting the status of an offering.

 

Yet, the curse on the ground remains, and life for humanity is bitterly harsh. It is a wretched existence that, generations later, leads Noah’s parents to wish (or prophesy) of their son:

Genesis 5:29 This one shall relieve us from our work, and from the hard labor of our hands, from the ground which Yahweh had cursed. Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

Some argue that the curse still remains today, citing the presence of thorns, thistles, and mildew, as well as the need for human labor to cultivate the land. This view is supported by biblical passages such as Haggai 2:17, which describes Yah smiting the land with blasting, mildew, and hail. Yet, others suggest that while the curse may have been lifted, the consequences of sin still affect the world, including the ground. This means that although the curse itself may not be active, its effects are still felt, and humanity continues to experience the results of sin.

 

I would like to propose otherwise. Namely, that the curse was lifted by yah immediately following the flood...

Genesis 8:20-21 And Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took from all the clean animals and from all the clean birds, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And Yahweh smelled the soothing fragrance, and Yahweh said to himself, “Never again will I curse the ground for the sake of humankind, because the inclination of the heart of humankind is evil from his youth. Nor will I ever again destroy all life as I have done. Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

The lifting off of the curse on the ground means that the earth no longer functions as a source of utter frustration for humanity. Humanity’s agricultural pursuits will no longer yield prickly shrubs. Instead, with human endeavor, the ground will now explode in abundance of new growth, allowing humanity to continue the task for which Yahweh originally tasked Adam in the Garden: stewarding and cultivating the ground. No longer will humans be forced to forage for the odd wild plant. The hardship of the past is gone.

 

This point comes to light even more in Genesis 9 as Noah decides to become a novice farmer. Evidently, the earth responds to his rookie efforts a little too well… wink wink...

 

From this, we can infer the following:

We need to stop preaching that the earth is cursed (based on passages such as Romans 8:18–21). Even though the world is still in a “fallen” state as is clearly evident by the tendency to death and decay that we see in the world around us, the earth is not cursed. It is, rather, a source of wellbeing for humanity, and it is a human responsibility to care for it. Work is not a curse. The curse that Yah originally placed on Adam and his descendants was that the earth would no longer yield to him, making his work futile. But that curse was temporary, as our story here indicates. Work is part of Yah’s good intention for humanity, and decent reward for decent effort should be the way we operate.