Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

by A.J. Swoboda

It is interesting that as God judges Adam, he says, “[The ground] will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field” (Gen. 3:18). Notice the word plants; the Hebrew word is eseb. The word is used for an annual, any plant that must be planted every single year. An annual dies every year. A perennial, however, is any plant that produces year after year without needing to be replanted. I have long theorized that the food God planted in Eden was exclusively food from perennial plants that came back every year—apples, asparagus, oranges, and pomegranates. Notice that Eden had trees. Trees produce food year after year after year. God’s provision is visible even in the landscape. After their exile from Eden, however, humanity relies on annuals for survival. No longer will Adam and Eve reside in the garden that God himself had planted with all of its perennials; they are now forced to raise their own plants that will die each year. Annuals are the landscape of displacement, of a people not at home. The only way one can eat perennials is by being established in a place.