3:19 By the sweat of your brow 1 you will eat food
until you return to the ground, 2
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” 3
49:26 The blessings of your father are greater
than 4 the blessings of the eternal mountains 5
or the desirable things of the age-old hills.
They will be on the head of Joseph
and on the brow of the prince of his brothers. 6
1 tn The expression “the sweat of your brow” is a metonymy, the sweat being the result of painful toil in the fields.
2 sn Until you return to the ground. The theme of humankind’s mortality is critical here in view of the temptation to be like God. Man will labor painfully to provide food, obviously not enjoying the bounty that creation promised. In place of the abundance of the orchard’s fruit trees, thorns and thistles will grow. Man will have to work the soil so that it will produce the grain to make bread. This will continue until he returns to the soil from which he was taken (recalling the creation in 2:7 with the wordplay on Adam and ground). In spite of the dreams of immortality and divinity, man is but dust (2:7), and will return to dust. So much for his pride.
3 sn In general, the themes of the curse oracles are important in the NT teaching that Jesus became the cursed one hanging on the tree. In his suffering and death, all the motifs are drawn together: the tree, the sweat, the thorns, and the dust of death (see Ps 22:15). Jesus experienced it all, to have victory over it through the resurrection.
4 tn Heb “have prevailed over.”
5 tn One could interpret the phrase הוֹרַי (horay) to mean “my progenitors” (literally, “the ones who conceived me”), but the masculine form argues against this. It is better to emend the text to הַרֲרֵי (harare, “mountains of”) because it forms a better parallel with the next clause. In this case the final yod (י) on the form is a construct plural marker, not a pronominal suffix.
6 tn For further discussion of this passage, see I. Sonne, “Genesis 49:24-26,” JBL 65 (1946): 303-6.