And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel.
After the fall, God speaks first to the serpent, not to the guilty pair. Inside that sentence of judgment lies the first announcement of a Deliverer. Who is this "seed of the woman," why is He the woman's and not the man's, and when is the serpent's head crushed?
Readers often call this verse the first promise. One commentator points out that the Bible never uses that word here:
Believers have long called it a "promise," but Scripture never does. God did reveal endless blessing for man here, but that is not quite a promise. He spoke the words to the serpent. If they promised anything to anyone, it was to the woman's Seed, the last Adam — not to the first Adam, whom God had just sentenced along with Eve.
Adam had just blamed his wife and, through her, God Himself. So the hope that reaches him rests on Someone else:
The question here is really between the serpent and the second Man, not the first. This is not a promise to Adam and Eve from God, nor a hope that their children will improve. God passes judgment on the enemy. In the same breath He reveals the Saviour — the child of the very woman who had drawn the man into ruin at the devil's hand. The woman's Seed will bruise the serpent's head, but He Himself is bruised first. What grace, yet what righteousness! What humiliation, yet what victory!
The phrase breaks the pattern of every genealogy that follows in the Bible.
Everywhere in creation, from man downward, the seed belongs to the male and not the female. So the seed of the woman is not according to nature as we know it. It stands outside what God had just made, and it points forward to a new creation. The Lord Jesus was born of a virgin, and here we have the first hint of that fact, which is a vital one. No taint of the fall attached to Him. He was not just innocent, as Adam was at the start — He was holy.
That wording also rules out any patching up of the old order:
This is not a repair of the place Adam lost. It is a new and mysterious beginning. In it God's power takes up the weakness and instability of the creature — seen most clearly in the woman — to display His grace. The victory over the enemy costs something. The Conqueror bruises the serpent's head, but His own heel is bruised.
The verse speaks of the serpent's seed as well as the woman's, and one writer reads the sentence on two levels at once:
A double meaning runs through this verse, one literal and one deeper. Everyone knows that people hate snakes more than any other creature. So the sentence is literal. In the deeper sense, the seed of the woman is Christ. The words "between your seed and her seed" then cover two sides. On one side are all who belong to Christ. On the other are the children of the devil, whether wicked spirits or wicked men. The hostility would not come from the children of God toward others. It would come from the wicked toward the righteous. Cain murdering Abel showed this at once.
The same writer notes that the pronoun "it" is masculine in Hebrew, because the verb is masculine — pointing to Christ, not to Mary, as some have argued.
The two wounds are not equal, and the choice of body part is deliberate.
This overwhelming victory would also cost the Victor some suffering. During the conflict the serpent would bruise His heel. In walking, the heel is the first part of the foot to touch the ground. The picture is striking. The Victor suffered when He first touched the earth in His holy Manhood. God made Him a little lower than the angels so that He could suffer death — the death that Satan's cunning brought about.
Commentators differ over how much of the head-crushing has already happened. Some place it at the cross. Others point out that Satan still goes about, so the word is not yet fully carried out. One writer sets the two stages side by side:
Christ suffered at the cross, and this Scripture came true there. It had announced what would happen to Christ, the woman's Seed. It was also a partial fulfilment of what He would do to Satan. "Through death" He destroyed "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." The crushing of the serpent's head will be complete when the Lord casts the devil into the lake of fire.
Believers are not spectators in this. One writer comments on a later verse that says God will soon crush Satan under the feet of believers:
The church is joined to Christ. It will then be with Him who, as the woman's seed, will bruise the serpent's head. But the power is in Christ, not in the church.
- Spoken — the words are addressed to the serpent, not to Adam. Grace reaches the guilty man through Another, and rests on Him alone.
- Second Man — the contest is between the serpent and the second Man, never the first. Adam is sentenced; Christ is the object of promise.
- Woman's — seed always belongs to the male, so this phrase stands outside nature. It is the first hint of the virgin birth, and a new beginning instead of a repaired old one.
- Seeds — from Cain onward, two families run through history. The hostility flows from the wicked toward the righteous.
- Heel, then head — the wound to the Victor was real but limited. The wound to the serpent is fatal. It began at the cross and ends in the lake of fire.
To the woman he said, I will greatly increase thy travail and thy pregnancy; with pain thou shalt bear children; and to thy husband shall be thy desire, and he shall rule over thee.
God turns from the serpent to the woman with a sentence in two parts: pain in childbearing, and a husband who rules over her. Writers ask whether this is a curse at all, and how much of it still stands today.
Her sentence lands where her sin happened. She had a place beside Adam, and she stepped out of it.
True and righteous indeed are His judgments! Where she had sinned, there she was punished. Her lust had conceived and brought forth sin. So her sorrow and her conception were to be greatly multiplied, and she was to bring forth children in sorrow. She had forgotten her place as Adam's "helper." Taking the lead, she misled him into that terrible first sin of disobedience against God.
The word "cursed" is spoken over the serpent and over the ground — not over the woman. What she receives is described as God's ordering of life on earth from now on, and it stands against the plain contrast of what she had before.
As with the serpent, Jehovah Elohim speaks to the woman of the present governmental effects of her sin. Woman, more than any other female, was to have sorrow multiplied in pregnancy and in giving birth. Woman, not man, is the one who suffers this sorrow again and again. It was righteous, however sad. She first listened to the enemy, despising God and His word; then she drew her husband after her into the ditch. From now on she was to be subject. Like a younger brother to an elder, her desire was to be to her husband, and he was to rule over her. The fall would make this hard. How different the original position of companionship! Sin made God a judge: before it, He simply blessed.
A writer takes the pain of birth as a witness about the child, not just the mother. He then asks what happens when people try to overturn the order this verse sets for marriage.
But this sorrow underlines that every child is born with a sinful nature. David says in Psalm 51:5, "I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Her desire would be to her husband, and he would rule over her. This is the normal condition of the marriage relationship now. Many people have tried, and still try, to change this. The result is a state of things that is not normal, and it only causes more confusion and dissatisfaction everywhere… When people ignore God's word, no wonder the troubles of the world multiply. People cannot sidestep the consequences of sin so easily as they think.
Both halves of the verse are picked up in Paul's letter to Timothy — and the second half comes with something Genesis never mentioned.
Genesis 3:16 is explicit in naming two results which were to follow for the woman as a consequence of her sin. The second of those two results is alluded to in the verses we have been considering, while the first result is alluded to in verse 15 of our chapter, and in connection with that a gracious proviso is attached, no mention of which is found in Genesis 3.
Another writer calls this same order part of the curse, and then shows what Christian teaching does with it. Older translations read "your desire shall be to your husband"; the ESV renders it "contrary to your husband."
Part of the curse pronounced on the woman at the fall was, "Your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." Christianity confirms this order, but so remodels it that all trace of the curse disappears. When a believer submits to the Lord, or the Church to Christ, that is no curse and no bondage. These are now the patterns for a wife's submission… How beautiful to see a human relationship — one that takes part of its character from the fall — turned into a picture of the mystery in which God displays His "manifold wisdom."
Her pain does more than remind her of her sin. It also points her forward.
In her sorrow and pains the woman is always reminded of her sin. She is also reminded of Him who will deliver her from the results of her evil, through a deeper sorrow and pain. So from the very beginning, the desire for the promised Deliverer is planted in her heart.
One writer sets God's word to the woman here beside a later word spoken to a woman in tears.
Self-will had brought forth its full harvest of sin and sorrow. To the woman He says, "I will surely multiply your pain." But now, to the woman, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Sorrow has taken the place of joy in this world, because self-will came in, and death followed it. But now the old things have passed away… death has given place to life, and sorrow to joy.
- Sin. She was punished where she sinned — she left her place, took the lead, and drew her husband after her.
- Sentence. Writers differ on calling it a curse. God sets the terms of her life on earth now, in place of the companionship she had before.
- Sorrow. The pain of birth witnesses that every child enters a fallen race. Efforts to overturn the marriage order only multiply trouble.
- Order. Christianity confirms the order, but remodels it on Christ and the Church, so that no trace of the curse is left.
- Joy. The same sorrow keeps alive the desire for the promised Deliverer, and the later word to a weeping woman turns sorrow back into joy: "Woman, why are you weeping?"