Chapter 5: It Shall Bruise Thy Head

Though God was gracious to His newly formed people, a great tragedy occurred. Let us read what happens next.

Genesis 3:1-24: Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (2) And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: (3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. (4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: (5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

(6) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (7) And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

(8) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. (9) And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (10) And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. (11) And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? (12) And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

(13) And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

(14) And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (15) 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.

(16) Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

(17) And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; (18) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; (19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

(20) And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. (21) Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (22) And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (23) Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

This portion of the Bible is packed with a lot of information. It is at once seasoned with both despair and hope. Let us mine the treasure of this text one piece at a time.

1. The serpent is none other than Satan. The name Satan does not appear in this passage, but we know from Revelation 12:9 that this serpent is Satan in disguise. Satan is the enemy of God and wants to hurt God anyway that he can. One way he can do so is by trying to harm God’s special possession and own image, people. Because Satan hates God, he also hates people (John 8:44). Satan is a liar, so he disguised himself as this serpent.
2. The serpent undermined God’s goodness and His command. We will see soon that Satan was very familiar with God’s command about the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:1, 4). As God’s enemy, he questioned God’s provision, as if God was holding something back from Adam and his wife.
3. The serpent approached Adam’s wife, not Adam. If you noticed in the previous chapter, God entrusted His commandment concerning the tree of knowledge to Adam before his wife was created (Genesis 2:17-18). Satan was counting on the fact that somewhere between Adam hearing the command and his telling his wife about it, that something would get miscommunicated (Genesis 3:1).
4. Adam’s wife misquoted God’s Word. It is good to notice that she misquoted God in at least three ways. Either Adam misquoted it to his wife, or his wife misquoted it on her own. I feel like it was probably a little bit of both, but we cannot know for sure.
   
   First, in Genesis 3:2, we read, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.” That may sound close to the same as the original command in Genesis 2:16. However, notice the absence of the word “freely.” Remember how this word indicated the duplication of the word “eat” in the original manuscripts? This was done for emphasis, so that Adam and his wife would know that they could eat as much from the garden as they would want. Well, the woman did not use this emphasis. We can tell that the couple did not recognize God’s generosity as they should have.
   
   In Genesis 3:3, the woman said of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it.” God never said anything about not touching it; this was added somewhere by Adam or Eve along the way.
   
   In the same verse, the woman also stated the penalty for eating or touching this tree: “lest ye die.” Again, the emphasis of duplicating the verb “die” is missing. The definite consequence of death was softened to a mere possibility.
   
   When we are ignorant of God’s Word, we open the door for sin and rebellion against Him. Because the woman (and as we shall see, the man also) did not know the command of God, Satan had a complete inroad to dominate her with his lies.
5. The serpent knew God’s command, and negated it. The serpent replied to the woman, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). The serpent made two changes to God’s commandment. First, he changed the subject from “thou” to “ye” (from singular to plural) because Adam’s wife had not been created at the time when God gave the commandment. This is not the significant change.
   
   The main issue is that Satan, in the guise of the serpent, took God’s commandment and stuck the word “not” in front of it. Satan called God a liar. He properly used the word “die” twice for emphasis. The serpent knew exactly what God had said; he plainly negated it.
   
   The serpent alleged that God had lied to Adam and his wife in order to hold something back from them (Genesis 3:5). They would be like gods! As Lucifer lifted himself up in pride when he saw how God had blessed him, he also was trying to use pride to turn her away from God.
   
   This was the first time that either Adam or his wife had ever seen anyone challenge God’s command or His goodness. As ones who were ordained of God to rule over His creation, the serpent was under their authority (Genesis 1:28). The first human beings had a choice: They could either submit to the LORD God, who was the creator, owner and king over the created order, or they could listen to a creature under their authority.
6. Adam and his wife disobeyed God and ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The woman, after being lied to by Satan, started considering the tree (Genesis 3:6). She noticed three things about the tree: it seemed to be good for food, pleasant to look at it, and able to make them wise. Sin is often about one of these things (1 John 2:16). Life was no longer about serving God, but rather on how to please herself.
   
   We could (wrongfully) excuse the woman because she was fooled by Satan. Adam, however, who had directly heard the commandment from God, outright rebelled against God. Adam was entrusted with the Word of God, and he failed to obey it.
   
   Now that they had rebelled against God, Adam and his wife were to face the consequences of their sin.
7. Adam and his wife immediately felt shame. “The eyes of them both were opened” (Genesis 3:7). So where was the divinity that Satan had promised? On the contrary, they felt guilt. They knew something was wrong. This “knowledge” of evil they received was not knowledge about evil, but rather experiential knowledge of evil. They now were evil.
   
   Being naked, they felt exposed and ashamed. They rightfully recognized that they needed to cover their shame. They tried to cover their shame by making their own clothes out of fig leaves. Take note of this; we will discuss this shortly.
8. Sin cannot stand before God. God is holy. He is distinct from His creation, and He is perfect. Imperfection cannot stand in His presence. The moment that Adam and his wife heard God in the garden, they ran and hid (Genesis 3:8).
   
   The man and the woman were once friends of God! The LORD gave them everything they had ever needed. Now, they were afraid of God. Remember the first way we defined death in the previous chapter? Adam and his wife were separated from God. This separation was not by proximity, but rather in relationship.
   
   God called to Adam to ask them where they were (Genesis 3:9). God knows everything. So why did He ask where they were? God asks questions to expose sin and elicit confession.
   
   In this key exchange between God and the man, the woman, and the serpent, a literary device is used called a chiastic structure. In such a device, let me demonstrate with a simple example. If there were a five-lined poem, the first and fifth lines would be related, or parallel in some way. The second and the fourth line would also be parallel. The third line would be the crux of the structure, and it would be what is most emphasized in the entire structure.
   
   In this case the chiastic structure is Genesis 3:9-19. God first questioned the man (Genesis 3:9-12). Second, He questioned the woman (Genesis 3:13). God then pronounced judgment on the serpent (Genesis 3:14-15), then judgment on the woman (Genesis 3:16), and then judgment on the man (Genesis 3:17-19). The crux of the chiastic structure is the judgment on the serpent.
9. The man and the woman shifted blame, but ultimately confessed their rebellion against God. When asked if Adam ate from the tree, notice his answer in Genesis 3:12: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Adam blamed his wife and God for his own choice to disobey! “If it weren’t for that woman you gave me!” Ultimately, he had to confess that he did eat from the tree.
   
   When asking the woman in Genesis 3:13, the woman placed some blame on the serpent, but ultimately confessed as well.
10. A seed of the woman will destroy Satan. God did not ask the serpent anything; God pronounced judgment on the serpent. In Genesis 3:14, God pronounced judgment on the serpent as an animal.
    
    In Genesis 3:15, God pronounced judgment on Satan, the force behind the serpent. This is the crux of the whole exchange. I will include it here, and we will examine it a piece at a time:
    
    “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.”
    
    God said that He would place enmity between Satan and the woman, and also between Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed. “Seed” is a child or a descendant. What is important to know about this is that in the Scriptures, women do not normally have “seed”; men do. In the Bible, posterity is named in the man and not in the woman, so this is highly unusual.
    
    Whoever this seed of the woman is, he was going to deliver a mortal wound to Satan (“it shall bruise thy head”). Also, Satan was going to wound this seed of the woman in some way.
    
    At some point in time yet unknown to Adam and his wife, a virgin would conceive and have a son, and though this son would suffer in some way at the hands of Satan, He would destroy Satan and his works. This man is called a Savior.
11. There were consequences of this sin on all of humanity. In Genesis 3:16, we see that women would now have excruciating pain in giving birth. Work would no longer be as it was in the garden, but rather with great exertion, with flesh-tearing thistles (Genesis 3:17-18). The ground would be cursed. The whole created order was marred because its chief caretakers, humankind, had rebelled against God.
    
    Unlike Satan, God always tells the truth. God had said that they would surely die, and their bodies were already beginning to die (Genesis 3:19). A flower cut from the garden may look very much alive, but in reality it has been cut from its source of life. Adam was cut from his source of life, God, and eventually physically died, his body returning to the ground (Genesis 5:5).
    
    Remember previously, we saw how death was threefold:
    
    Death as relational separation from God: They were separated from God relationally because of sin. The holy creator God cannot have sin in His presence.
    
    Death as the body physically dying: God had said that they would physically die, and they eventually did.
    
    Death as eternal condemnation in the lake of fire: So what about this? Are Adam and his wife condemned to the lake of fire? Unless they have a Savior to save them, they have no hope. They are destined to eternal flame unless somehow they can be saved.
    
    God in His goodness was going to provide a way through the Savior.
12. Adam and his wife believed God. So we read Genesis 3:20: “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” Finally, we find out the name of Adam’s wife: Eve. This is more than a name, however.
    
    Eve indeed was mother of all the living. Every single human being that has ever lived on this planet has the common ancestors of Adam and Eve. There were no other people on the planet except these two at this time. This is part of the reason why Eve is her name.
    
    It runs deeper than that, though. By this verse, we see that Adam and Eve believed God’s promise of the coming Savior. After hearing tons of bad news about their marriage relationship, birth pains, and working in thistles in great toil, they cling to the promise of a coming Savior that will save them from Satan! A woman was going to give birth to one who would bring life again! They realized that this Savior was the only hope to rescue them from the fires of hell. They may not have trusted God that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in death. They may have trusted Satan’s word over God’s Word. Now, however, they were trusting God because His provision of the Savior was their only hope.
13. God took away the shame of Adam and Eve. If you recall, Adam and Eve tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). By the time the LORD God was in the garden, they were naked again (Genesis 3:10). The clothing they made for themselves did not hold together well! Humankind cannot cover their own shame by their own works and methods.
    
    In Genesis 3:21, God provided clothes for them: clothes that would last. Here we begin to see how God could punish Adam and Eve’s sin without punishing them. God slew animals and took their skins, making for them new clothes. Innocent animals died in Adam and Eve’s place; death is the only payment for sin. These coverings covered their shame. The animals did not do anything wrong. The innocent animals’ blood was shed in the place of Adam and Eve.
14. God removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Being evicted from the garden was both an act of judgment and of grace. It was an act of judgment because imperfection cannot come into the presence of God. It was also an act of grace (unmerited favor) because humankind will not live forever in the painful conditions that now existed in the world. The LORD placed cherubim, one of the types of angels, to block the way back into the garden (Genesis 3:24). Adam and Eve could never go back in; God forced them out.

Starting from the beginning of the Bible until now, we have seen the majesty of the LORD God, in all His power, creating a perfect world. But because of Satan and the rebellion of humankind, the once perfect world was now cursed. Pain, suffering, and death, once unheard of, were now commonplace. Apart from the coming Savior, no hope remained for the human race, but rather a life of suffering and death, and after this, the judgment of the lake of fire (Hebrews 9:27).

Every human being that has come into the world since Adam and Eve was born dead in sin. We all have sin, meaning we are born in a state of rebellion against God. This is far beyond mere moral pollution. We were all born outside the Garden of Eden, alienated and separated from God. We are born evil, and we naturally do evil. Because we are by nature God’s enemies and Satan’s pawns, all we know how to do is sin and rebel against God. Apart from the promised Savior, we have no hope in this life, or in the next life. God’s wrath remains because of our sin. Death is the only payment for sin.

Not only are we born rebels who do nothing but sin, we also are victims of other people’s sin. Other people hurt us. We are all ultimately selfish, exalting ourselves and filling ourselves with our desires. Because of this, we hurt other people and people hurt us.

Furthermore, we are victims of living in a fallen world. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and obeyed Satan’s lies, they relinquished much of their authority on earth and gave it to Satan. Sickness and disease were now present, and we could get a terminal disease that would rob us of life. Nothing in this world is certain except uncertainty.

Lastly, Satan is still alive and well in this world. We know that one day he will be thrown into the lake of fire, but as of now, he is out to destroy and kill as many people as he can. He has a huge army of devils, the angels that have rebelled against God with him, that help him. He has usurped humanity’s authority, and the world became his kingdom.

How will the Savior change all of this? We will keep reading, and discover how.

Next: Chapter 6: And the LORD Had Respect

Previous: Chapter 4: And the LORD God Planted a Garden Eastward in Eden

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