In all these respects therefore we can form an idea of the mighty evil of sin; when we behold the thorns, the briers, the sweat of the brow, etc., which are before us. Whichever way we turn the magnitude of that evil is ever present. Hence man did not fall by sin in soul only, but in body also; and both participate in the punishment. For labor is a punishment, which in the state of innocence was an amusement and a pleasure. Even as now, in the present state of the misery of nature, if any one has a productive garden, neither digging nor sowing nor planting is a labor, but a certain devoted employment and a delight. What then must have been this employment and delight in the garden of Eden in the state of original innocence! How much more pleasurable and perfect! And here also we may reflect with profit that man was not created to idleness, but to labor; no, not even in the state of primitive innocence. Wherefore every state of an idle or indolent life is condemnable; such for instance as the life of monks and nuns. As the original labor and employment of man were unattended with sorrow or distress, as we have shown, so also this guarding and protecting of that which he possessed was full of pleasure and delight; whereas now all such protection is full of labor and peril. Adam could have stopped or driven away even bears and lions by one single word. We have now indeed our means of defense, but they are truly horrible; for we cannot do without swords and spears, and cannon, and walls, and ramparts, and castle-fosses, etc.; and even with all these we and our loved ones scarcely abide in safety. Hence we have scarcely the feeblest traces remaining either of the original work or the original protection. Others expound this passage differently, making it to mean, "that God might till and keep it." But the text speaks of human "tilling" and human "keeping" absolutely. So Cain just below, Gen. 4:2, is said to have been "a tiller of the ground." And in Job and Ecclesiastes kings are called tillers of the earth or husbandmen; not merely on account of their labor itself in tillage, but on account of their guardianship and protection. But as I have all along said, labor and protection are now hard and difficult terms? But originally they were terms denoting a certain delightful employment and exquisite pleasure. II. Ver. 16, 17a. _And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it._