West, Benjamin. The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. 1791, National Gallery of Art, London.
This article is Part 1 of the FAI Publishing series Seeds and Generations, a Biblical survey of the theology of “Seed” and “Generation” throughout redemptive history to the end of the age.
A DECLARATION OF WAR
Genesis 3:15 is one of the most-quoted verses in Scripture, and also one of the least-understood. As the Pre-incarnate One stands before the Serpent, the Man, and the Woman, condemning the deception of the former and the disobedience of the latter, He portends a cosmic conflict:
And I will put enmity
between you [the serpent] and the woman,
Between your seed and her Seed,
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.
In confronting the entrance of sin into the world, the Lord declares His intense, unyielding, and undying opposition to everything “that raises itself against the knowledge of God.”[1]. As He would do centuries later, the Creator of All Things stoops down to draw a line in the sand, at least proverbially-speaking:
There will be two “seeds” — one from the serpent, and one from the woman.
These two seeds will not be allies, but enemies.
One critical and oft-overlooked aspect of this verse is the Lord’s active part in it. Miriam-Webster defines enmity as “active…hatred or ill will.”[2] In other words, enmity is hatred which becomes “active” in word and deed, often violently so. The Hebrew phrase “v’ebah asit” can be literally translated “And enmity I put…”[3] Therefore, it’s not the serpent that places this enmity, or the woman. The One who provokes enmity between the two seeds is the Lord Himself. By divine decree, there will never be peace between the two seeds, for “what fellowship can light have with darkness?”[4] Rather than raising an olive branch, the Lord unsheathes a sword.[5] Genesis 3:15 is not just a declaration of judgment. It is a declaration of war.
A Tale of Two Seeds
In His first act of divine justice on the Earth, the Lord ordains enmity first between the woman and the serpent, and then between the “seeds” which would come from them. The Hebrew word “zerah” literally means seed[6], and is used in Genesis 1:11 to describe the creation of vegetation and fruit “in which is their seed, each according to its kind.” So a “seed” is the germ of a ”kind.” Whatever the “kind” may be, its “seed” will grow to become the same.
Therefore, the “seed of the woman” can be understood as that which comes from the woman after her kind. We could assume this to be all humans, as Eve is the “mother of all the living.”[7] And in a biological sense, that is true. In reference to humanity, the word “zerah” is most often rendered in English translations as “offspring” or “descendants.” But was the Lord really using this pivotal moment to describe a rather obscure aspect of the natural order? In other words, is Genesis 3:15 just a proclamation that snakes will bite the heels of humans, and humans will in turn step on the heads of snakes? If the serpent of Genesis 3 is only a serpent, then the answer is yes. But if he is more than a serpent, then the “natural” interpretation of the two seeds breaks down.
Indeed, the serpent is much more than just a snake. Considering the obvious fact that snakes don’t naturally speak, and that they aren’t naturally “craftier” than any other species of animal[8], we can ascertain that the writer of Genesis was employing the ancient motif of a serpent to describe a supernatural being. As a Middle Eastern Jew in the first century, the Apostle John understood this motif. Twice in the Book of Revelation, he deciphers the identity of “that ancient serpent” as the one “who is called the devil and Satan.”[9] The serpent of Genesis 3 is the “slanderer” and “adversary” himself; the corrupted cherub of Ezekiel 28 who became vain on account of his beauty, and who fell from his position of authority. He is the “Day Star, Son of Dawn” described in Isaiah 14, who sought to “ascend above the heights of the clouds” and make himself “like the Most High.”[10]
Therefore, if the serpent is a supernatural being, then his offspring are not “natural.” The children of the serpent would not be conceived by normal human reproduction, but by a different “seed.” Proverbially-speaking, contained within the forbidden fruit was the seed of sin, the seed of pride, the seed of desiring to “be like God”[11]. This is the nature of the serpent himself, and therefore, those who carry this seed within them are by default his kind, his offspring, his children. And the children of the serpent will grow to become like the serpent. The same Preincarnate One who anticipated the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3 would Himself later confirm its supernatural lineage when He looked at the religious establishment of Jerusalem with incarnated eyes and declared, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.”[12] The seed of the serpent are all who do the will of the serpent in opposition to the One who created them. They are the ones who believe the lies of the serpent, and in so doing, receive his seed, become his “kind,” and grow to become like him.
The Seed of the Woman
But who is the seed of the woman? Again, in the sense of physical lineage, this can refer to all who are born naturally from the “mother of all the living.” But if the seed of the serpent has a metaphysical (i.e. supernatural) interpretation, could the same be true for the seed of the woman? The very phrase itself holds an important clue. Genesis 3:15 is the only verse throughout the Scriptures in which God addresses human offspring as the “seed” of a woman. In every other case, the human father is described as the one who carries the “seed” of his offspring, including two later figures in Genesis, Noah and Abraham.[13] “Zerah” is still used by Hebrew-speakers today as the equivalent of the English word semen, and the Jewish rabbis who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the Septuagint rendered “zerah” using the Greek word “sperma,”[14] which also means seed. So if the word “zerah” is so closely associated with men both biologically and culturally, why does the Lord not address this verse to Adam? Why is the opponent of the serpent not the seed of the man?
The Apostle Paul gives us an important clue to the mystery of the “seed of the woman.” In Romans 5, when describing the events of Genesis 3, Paul does not attribute humanity’s “original sin” to the actions of Eve, who was deceived by the serpent, but to the man who ate beside her. It was Adam who had received the command from God regarding the forbidden fruit before Eve was even formed from his side,[15] and therefore, it was Adam who was charged with transgressing that command. Like a host which carries a virus, Adam carried within him the seed of the serpent, and his physical offspring inherited it. As Paul states in verse 12, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” And again in verse 17, “because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man.”
Therefore, in order to break the certainty of sin and death which comes through the seed of the man, the “Seed” of a different Source was required to enter the human lineage. The man would need to be bypassed entirely, requiring God Himself to conceive new life directly within the woman. Such miraculous intervention is not the natural course of things, and so the seed of the woman would have to be a supernatural Offspring. The glorious irony of Genesis 3:15 is that the One who proclaimed the seed of the woman is the same One who would later become the seed of the woman. A daughter of Eve who had never known a man would one day be “overshadowed” by the “power of the Most High,” so that the “child to be born of you,” that is, the child to be born from the woman apart from the man, “will be called the Son [i.e. offspring] of the Most High.”[16] The seed of the woman will be of a different “kind” than the seed of the serpent. But will He be alone? We’ll explore the further-reaching implications of the Woman’s Seed and His “offspring” in a later article.
The First Good News
As two different “kinds,” there will be perpetual enmity between the serpent and the Seed who comes from the woman. Their offspring will never be at peace either. In this series’ next installment, we will explore how the war between the two seeds begins to manifest in the very next generation after Adam and Eve. But first, the Lord’s declaration in Genesis 3:15 has one more crucial line, “you [the woman] shall bruise his head, and he [the serpent] shall bruise your heel.”
That is, during the course of this cosmic battle, the seed of the woman will be wounded in the heel by the serpent. Throughout Scripture, the motif of a stricken heel is used in reference to trapping or overcoming a victim, often causing them to fall. Referring to the fate of the wicked, Job says “A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare lays hold of him.”[17] Prophesying that the descendants of his fifth son would later ensnare their fellow brethren in idolatry, Jacob says, “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward.”[18] David employs the heel when describing how his enemies who once sat at his table eventually gloated over his defeat:
They say, ‘A deadly thing is poured out on him;
he will not rise again from where he lies.’
Even my close friend in whom I trusted,
who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.[19]
So one day, an offspring of the serpent who sat and ate with the Seed of the Woman would “lift up his heel” against him, and it would seem, ensnare the heel of the Divine Seed in a trap. The Seed of the Woman would be painfully bruised in a stinging defeat, but not an ultimate defeat. In the very next verse of the psalm, David writes,
But you, O Lord, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them![20]
The Woman’s Seed would fall but not remain fallen. He would be bruised, but not crushed; struck down, but not destroyed.[21] On the contrary, He will “raise up” that he might “repay” his enemy. His retribution will not be a heel-bruising, but rather, a head-crushing.[22] Those whose heads were “crushed” in the Hebrew Scriptures were completely and utterly defeated.[23] The cosmic war would end in cosmic destruction for the seed of the serpent. That is why theologians have long referred to Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelion, or “first gospel.” On the Earth’s first bad day, its inhabitants receive the first good news that would eventually bring “great joy for all people.”[24]
From the beginning, God foretold the end. The War of the Two Seeds will not go on forever. The Woman’s Seed has already overcome,[25] and He will still yet come as One who “judges and makes war” until he rules with a rod of iron.[26] And He will not ride alone.
Maranatha.
Gabe Caligiuri is a regular contributor to THE WIRE publication and podcast, as well as an occasional contributor to other FAI digital content on the subjects of history and geopolitics as they relate to the Great Commission. Gabe and his family live in California.
[1] 2 Corinthians 10:5
[2] Enmity Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
[3] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/3-15.htm
[4] 2 Corinthians 6:14
[5] Matthew 10:34
[6] https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2233.htm
[7] Genesis 3:20
[8] Genesis 3:1
[9] Revelation 12:9, 20:2
[10] Isaiah 14:14
[11] Genesis 3:5
[12] John 8:44
[13] Genesis 9:9, 12:7
[14] https://studybible.info/interlinear/Genesis%203:15
[15] Genesis 2:16
[16] Luke 1:35
[17] Job 18:9
[18] Genesis 49:17, cf Judges 18
[19] Psalm 41:8-9
[20] Psalm 41:10
[21] 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
[22] The Hebrew text uses the same word translated “bruise.” But since a head wound was most often fatal in the ancient world, it’s clear that the phrase is insinuating the serpent’s death and defeat, not just his wounding, as with the seed of the woman. This is why many English verses will translate the same Hebrew word as “crush” instead of “bruise,” to convey the fatal sense of the wound.
[23] In reference to Sisera, commander of the Canaanite army (Judges 4) and Abimelech the conspirator (Judges 9).
[24] Luke 2:10
[25] John 16:33
[26] Revelation 19:11-15