The Promised Seed

The sentence is spoken to the serpent, not to Adam. "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15

The verb is the same both times in Hebrew, shuph, שׁוף. English versions often use two words, as the BSB does with "crush" and "strike," to show that the two blows are not equal. The head and the heel already show that. One blow is fatal to the serpent's power. The other wounds the seed. The Greek Old Testament uses a word that can mean to watch or to lie in wait, which is why some older argument turned the verse into a mere grudge. The Hebrew picture is a strike.

"Her seed" is unusual. Genealogies in this book run through the father. Here the line is the woman's. Paul will later talk of a seed, singular, who is Christ, and he is careful with a collective word in another place. Galatians 3:16 Genesis 3 does not say the name Jesus. It says there will be a line, and an enmity, and a wound that does not end in the serpent's victory: the head is crushed, and the heel is only struck.

Some readers stop at a proverb about people and snakes. The curse on the serpent's belly is that ordinary. The enmity that follows, and the seed who is struck and who strikes, is more than a warning to wear boots in the grass. The rest of the book keeps choosing one son, not every son. Seth, not Cain. Shem. Abraham. Judah. David. The line is narrow on purpose.

Eve's next words are sometimes read as if she thought Cain was the seed. "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man." Genesis 4:1 The Hebrew can be pressed that way, and it can be read more simply as her praise. Either way, Cain is not the seed who crushes the serpent's head. The next chapter shows what he is.

The timeline leaves this verse in year 1, or soon after, with no BC attached. A promise does not need a carbon date to be the hinge of the book.