Welcome back to our study of the book of Genesis, last week we gained a clearer understanding of the consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. We reaffirmed that we should trust God and His Word, appreciate His mercy, and avoid conversations with Satan. Now we’ll look at verses 11 through 23 to examine the serpent’s curse and man’s punishment for disobeying God.
The probing of the Lord. Is GOD omniscient?
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Indirectly Blaming GOD?
“The woman you gave to be with me”. By uttering these words, Adam was essentially saying that had GOD not created the woman, there would have never been a problem- the eating of the forbidden fruit. This is the same Adam that exclaimed in chapter 2- “this now is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man”.
The Love of GOD
I hope you can see the love of GOD dripping all over these verses. The probing of God is merciful in its intention. The phrase “what is this that you have done” is loaded with GOD’s love expressed through His grief over Eve’s actions. The bible tells us the following in 1 Corinthians 13: 6,
it( love) does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
For GOD to be GOD , HE can never rejoice over sin, it is an impossibility. What does that mean for you and I? We ought to never ever assume that GOD gloats over our sins. The church has been plagued with a view of GOD that has stripped Him of His Holiness. All over Scripture, whenever men of faith were in the presence of GOD they were made aware of their nakedness. In Isaiah 6, we read the following in verses 1-5,
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[a] of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”[b]4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Isaiah, the great prophet of GOD was exposed in God’s presence and as he confessed his sins, we read the following, inverses 6-7
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
The seraphim’s reaction demonstrates that GOD did not revel in Isaiah’s confession rather He made provisions for the atonement of his guilt. Many Christians, particularly in America, have been duped into believing that God is like our Grandpa or a cosmic Santa Claus, always smiling down at us despite our transgressions. As you and I read these verses, I pray and hope that we will ask the Holy Spirit to develop in us reverence and the fear of GOD for the bible says it is the beginning of wisdom.
14 The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
The Serpent’s curse
God doesn’t interrogate the serpent, he immediately receives his judgement, why? GOD knew his devious character and also knew that it was impossible for Satan to repent whereas MAN would be able to under the proclamation of divine mercy to confess his sin and to receive forgiveness.
God’s justice is flawless. He questioned the man first, then the woman, and finally identified the real offender. Although the serpent carried the greatest responsibility in this affair, the man and the woman are not exempt from punishment ( we’ll see that later).
Based on what we asserted earlier, satan used the serpent’s craftiness to his advantage. So while the serpent was an instrument ( or maybe not, maybe this is just referring to satan’s character ), he (the serpent ) is judged as well. To be under God’s curse means that His divine favor would never rest on the serpent. Now let’s explore what the serpent’s curse about crawling on his belly and eating dust may mean.
1. Do serpents crawl on their belly? Yes they do, but do they feed on dust? No they don’t. I don’t think this verse is to be understood in its literal sense.
The scripture tells us in first Peter that our adversary , the enemy of our soul is always prowling around like a lion , seeking someone to devour- this is hunting language. What does that have to do with the serpent crawling on his belly and eating dust all the days of his life?
Given that man is essentially made of dust and that he was created from it, it’s possible that this curse placed upon Satan truly reveals his main purpose: the desire to steal, kill, and destroy. As far as we are aware, his goal is to completely absorb human lives by seducing them into sin, which leads to death. The serpent seeks to consume humanity due to the curse he earned as a result of his heinous deeds. And that is exactly shown in the book of Job, where he wanders throughout the earth looking for someone to eat or destroy. That’s a possible interpretation ( again I’m not seeking to be dogmatic ).
2. This is the interpretation that I’m leaning toward. The eating of the dust and the crawling on the belly is a figure of speech meant to convey the ultimate humiliation that an enemy receives. In this case GOD’s divine judgement is that satan will always be a foe that will be always humiliated in all his attempts to bring havoc in he kingdom of GOD. Here are Scriptures that I found that support this.
Joshua 7:6
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads.
1 Samuel 2:8
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord‘s,
and on them he has set the world.2 Samuel 16:13
13 So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust.
Job 42:6
therefore I despise myself,
and repent[a] in dust and ashes.”
In all these three cases, you see that the protagonists ( Joshua, David and Job) are in a posture of humility. Now let’s look at more verses
Psalm 7:5
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.Psalm 44:25
For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our belly clings to the ground.Psalm 72:9
May desert tribes bow down before him,
and his enemies lick the dust!
If the first set of verses weren’t clear enough, these last three, recorded in the book of Psalms certainly are consistent with the curse the serpent receives- the ultimate shame and degradation. I believe GOD has swore in His wrath against the enemy that he ( the serpent/satan) will always be humiliated. In the next verse, GOD will show the serpent how he will be humiliated.
The Woman’s Sentence
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[e] and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
This verse holds more depth than it appears, hinting of prophetic elements that convey important truths. We’ve already made mention of the curse of the serpent, which will ultimately lead to his humiliation and defeat.
- an ongoing war: This enmity between the serpent and woman is an ongoing battle between two powerful adversaries. The woman recognizes her deception by the serpent and detests him for his treachery, sparking a fierce war among their descendants. The offspring of the woman would be those who are under divine favor while the offspring of the serpent are those who are under the curse of God. We’ll see early evidence of this conflict from Cain’s murder of Abel when we go to Chapter 4. The apostle John tells us that we shouldn’t be like Cain who was of the devil ( an offspring of the serpent) and murdered his brother Abel ( who was under divine grace/favor).
- death blows: each one in this war is seeking to deliver a death blow to his opponent. While the strike/bruise on the heel may not appear lethal, it is intended to bring about death if you think in terms of a serpent biting and injecting venom on the heel. The strike/bruise on the head is also meant to bring about ultimate death. So as already mentioned, this is a war between two foes, each intended to bring about the demise of his opponent.
- prophetic words: We can’t help but see in this verse a picture of the Messiah. Some other versions use the word seed instead of offspring, see the Amplified version,
And I will put enmity (open hostility)
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed (offspring) and her [e]Seed;
I raise this point for a reason. God is not arbitrary; he selects particular phrasing to provide us with hermeneutical hints. A woman on her own cannot have a seed because it is the man who usually plants his seed into the woman in order to produce life. In this case, the Scripture specifically calls this seed, the seed of the woman. I hope you see what we are being introduced to, the virgin birth. In Isaiah 7:13-14, we read the following,
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too small a thing for you to try the patience of men, but will you try the patience of my God as well? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Listen carefully, the [f]virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel (God with us).
This ultimate seed of the woman is God in the flesh, Jesus Christ who will bring satan’s kingdom to ruin by his death and resurrection. Satan dealt him a blow on the heel that brought about death but Christ triumphed and rose from the dead thus defeating satan forever. Let’s see what Colossians 2:11-15 says about it,
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities[b] and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.[c]
16 To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth;
In pain you will give birth to children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
Eve’s disobedience has dire consequences which are made clear in the 16th verse of Genesis 3. But before we look at the sentence the woman receives, it is important that w make the following observation. In His interrogation, GOD questions the man first, then the woman, and His judgement follows suit; Satan is cursed to an extreme while the woman and the man( as we’ll see later ) judgment is not one of perdition. This sequence as if each party is being judged according to their own respective actions. Now let’s look at the woman’s sentence closely.
I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth: the phrase pain in childbirth is used twice in verse 16. According to a commentary that I read, in the first instance, the pain in childbirth refers to the anxiety that a woman will experience through the whole process from conception to birth. This is because the noun translated “pain” is the the Hebrew word “iss bon” which is of the same root as ( eseb, oseb and assbet) which all refer to pain, agony, hardship, worry nuisance and anxiety. What is important to mention here is that this root is not typically used to target physical pain but mental or psychological anguish ( though physical pain may accompany or be the root cause of the anguish).
In pain you will give birth to children: In the second instance, the author refers to the strenuous work of giving birth.
Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”: there are a lot of controversies surrounding this verse so to interpret it, I looked for anything in Scripture that was remotely close it and I found an interesting verse in Genesis 4,
4 Now the man [a]had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have obtained a male child with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground. 3 So it came about [b]in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground. 4 Abel, on his part also brought an offering, from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering; 5 but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his face [c]was gloomy. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why is your face [d]gloomy? 7 If you do well, [e]will your face not be [f]cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain [g]talked to his brother Abel; and it happened that when they were in the field Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
We’ll eventually get to chapter 4, but from the passage above you can see what GOD is telling Cain. Sin is controlling ( trying to control) Cain and God is telling him that he must rule over sin ( of course by faith, with the power of God). In the same way, we see that as a result of the Fall, the woman has been given over to a fleshly desire that entices her to want to rule over her husband. But her rebellious attitude will not prevail for the man as God mandated will rule over her. This verse certainly confirms what we’ve been witnessing with the feminist movement that seeks to elevate women over men in terms of roles.
The Man’s sentence
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
With [h]hard labor you shall eat from it
All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
Yet you shall eat the [i]plants of the field;
19 By the sweat of your face
You shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
This time, the ground is cursed because of the man’s disobedience. What does it mean for the ground to be cursed? Like we explained earlier, to be under a curse according to the bible is to be removed from God’s protection and favor. As a result of the ground being removed from God’s favor, protection and blessing, it will now yield its produce through hard labor. Remember in the garden of Eden, the man wasn’t to eat any plants of the field. He was under God’s divine favor in the garden and now that he will be led outside the garden, he’ll have to eat the plants of the fields. The impact of this curse is that, though food is still available to people, it will be much harder to produce it. I want us to quickly go back to Genesis 2 and make some quick observations in verse 5
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to [d]cultivate the ground
and now let’s look at verses 7-9,
7 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living [g]person. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The man was formed from the ground outside of the garden of Eden and then placed into the garden to till it. The trees that were good for food were already there and made available so the man could feed himself ( this is before the Fall). After the man’s disobedience, he is going to be sent outside the Garden ( which we’ll see in the next verses), and do hard labor in order to produce food for consumption for the ground is no longer under divine favor.
Skin Garments
20 Now the man named his wife [j]Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
Eve means life or life spring, the first woman as the mother of all living. In verse 21, we see unfolding right before our eyes an act of grace from God. Let’s recall that Adam and his wife made coverings for themselves with fig leaves. But their coverings did little to shelter them from the gaze of God, in the sense that they still felt naked when they heard the sound of Him in the garden. Now they were going to be sent outside the garden, away from the presence of God where they were going to be faced with harsher conditions. So the Lord being gracious to them ( once more) made for them garments of skin to shelter and protect them for what was to come once they were outside of Eden. Some see in these garments on skin an unofficial introduction of animal sacrifice for the atonement of sin ( that may be the case or not). But the most important thing to glean from this is the grace of God whereby HE provides Adam and Eve with garments of skin as a replacement for the useless fig leaves they sewed together.
Banishment from the Garden
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
satan promised Adam and Eve a false sense of autonomy that led to their demise. God alone is Holy , set apart from all creation and HE alone is self existent. Adam and Eve reached out for autonomy and as a result fell from grace and now they had to be banished from the Garden. God had told them that the day they would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die, and now this was going to be a reality. And you ask how? The scripture gives us the answer to that. Because they were now outside of the Garden of Eden, access to the tree of life that was supposed to keep them living was no longer available, hence, they would inevitably perish ( as God had told them). God didn’t want them to spend all of eternity in a fallen state, hence the banishment from Eden.
In verse 23, the man’s sentence is passed whereby he is sent out of the Garden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken through hard labor, for the ground is no longer under divine grace. In verse 24, we see the seriousness of the sentence as God stations cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
This is indeed a sad day for all humanity. As much as we grieve because we are in a fallen state, constantly fighting the sin in our life, an even greater loss is the absence of God presence in our life. What we see in Genesis 3 is man being driven away from the presence of God, and that my friend is at the root of all our agonies. Thank God for making a way for us through Jesus Christ, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, caused by Adam and Eve.
There is a very interesting parallel between the flaming sword that guard the way to the tree of life and John 14:6,
6 Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.
No one comes to GOD except through the GOD-Man Jesus. I’ve written a post about the necessity of this God-Man and will encourage you to read it, see link below
My name is Tayib Salami and I started Tayibs.com for the sole purpose of exploring difficult questions about the Christian faith that most of us shy away from. In 2017, I entered a very dark time in my life and it’s only by the grace of the Living God that I’m still alive today. It led me to really go deeper in my faith and consider a myriad of questions that I never thought about asking myself or others before. Welcome and enjoy the ride with me.