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 sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Unto Adam he said. The term Adam is used here as a proper name for the first time. Gesenius is of the opinion that, having almost always the prefix of the article, it is to be considered as an appellative, and equivalent to 'the human race;' yet there are exceptions (cf. Job 28:28; Job 31:33); and while, as we formerly observed, the whole tenor of the narrative in Genesis 2:1-25 points to an individual man, we find him in this verse addressed personally by his proper name of "Adam".
Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In the rich and smiling garden of Eden the vigorous and prolific soil yielded a spontaneous produce, and the industry of man was confined to the easy and pleasant work of checking or regulating the luxuriant growth of vegetation. This state, because anything we are told to the contrary, would have been perpetuated but for the disobedience of rebellious man, who, with the solemn warning of the penal consequences still ringing in his ears, transgressed, and with the loss of his innocence forfeited the happy place of his primeval abode. The awful curse of an offended God fell not, however, upon Adam himself, as it did upon the serpent, but upon the ground 'for his sake;' so that, as has been quaintly but justly remarked, he was cursed only "at second hand" (as there were blessings in reserve for him); and he found the immediate accomplishment of the curse in the changed character of the soil on which he had to work; because it was thenceforward niggard of its fruits, unless wooed into productiveness by the toil and culture of the fallen race.