The Seed & the Serpent

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”Genesis 3:15 · KJV

The first promise after the fall was spoken to the serpent: “it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). A crushed head and a bruised heel: the cross cost Him something and cost the serpent everything.

“Her seed.” Nowhere else in the Old Testament is a child called the seed of a woman; descent is always reckoned through the father. The one exception is the first promise, and it stays strange until a virgin in Nazareth explains it: “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” (Gal 4:4). The whole Bible is that sentence coming true, and Paul hands the end of it to the church: “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom 16:20). The heel that was struck is the one that does the crushing.