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?
Grace revealed inside a sentence of judgment
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!
Why "the woman's" seed
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.
Two seeds, two families
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 bruised heel
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.
When is the head crushed?
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.
Summary
- 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.