Is Genesis 3:15 Messianic?

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.

This passage is famously known as the protoevangelium because it is the first (proto) proclamation of the gospel (euangelion). God promised to deal a mortal blow to the serpent (Satan) through the seed (offspring) of the woman (Eve).

Many scholars today, however, reject this messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15 and instead see it either etiologically (human misery as a result of sin)1 or symbolically (mankind’s constant struggle over the forces of evil).2 These views reject the belief that the serpent (nāḥāš)3 in Genesis 3 represents Satan (Revelation 12:9). It is argued that Genesis 3:15 says nothing about an individual coming savior, the Messiah.4 Today, even among many theologians who have a high view of Scripture, the understanding that Genesis 3:15 is a messianic prophecy has almost disappeared. How should we understand Genesis 3:15, etiologically, symbolically, or messianically? It is important to keep in mind that for Jesus, the whole Old Testament should be read as pointing to him, a messianic text that points to the hope of a future Messiah (Luke 24:44–45; John 5:45). As a historical text, Genesis 3:15 begins the messianic hope of the Old Testament in seed form. Therefore, Moses gives the first allusion to the coming redeemer in Genesis 3:15 and then uses the rest of the Torah to identify him as the coming Messiah.

Preliminary Considerations

There are several preliminary considerations for viewing Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text. First, salvation in the midst of judgment is a common theme in the early chapters of Genesis. After murdering his brother Abel, God gave Cain a mark to protect him (Genesis 4:15). God spared Noah and his family from the judgment of the Flood through an ark (Genesis 6:17–18), and the judgment at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) is followed by the call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1–9). It would be expected, then, that with God’s first pronouncement of judgment, there would be the hope of salvation.

Second, the serpent should be seen as something other than just a mere snake, i.e., an animal animated by an evil power (snakes cannot talk).5 Snakes are not inherently evil, as God made everything “very good” (Genesis 1:31), and a mere snake, apart from an evil power animating it, would not be able to tempt mankind. It is the serpent himself (not his offspring) who will be crushed by the woman’s offspring indicating a longevity not normal to mere snakes.

These ancient Jewish interpreters understood and read Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text.6

Third, ancient Jewish interpreters explained Genesis 3:15 in a messianic sense. This can be seen in Jewish rabbinical literature (non-canonical) the Targumim Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti, and Onqelos. Targum Neofiti on Genesis 3:15 states, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your children and her children. And it will come about when her children keep the Torah, and do the commandments, they will aim at you and smite you on your head and kill you, but when they abandon the commandments of the Torah, you will be aiming at him and will bite him on the heel, and will make him deathly ill. But there will be healing for his son, but for you, O serpent, there will not be healing, for they will make appeasement at the last, in the day of the King Messiah.” Moreover, even Jewish literature written after the advent of Christianity sees Genesis 3:15 as messianic. The Midrash Genesis Rabbah 23:5 states: “Rabbi Tanchuma said, in the name of Rabbi Samuel: Eve had respect to that seed which is coming from another place. And who is this? This is the King Messiah.” These ancient Jewish interpreters understood and read Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text.6

Context of Genesis 3:15

To understand Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text, it is important to recognize not only the immediate context but also the surrounding and overall context of Genesis 3. In Genesis 1–2, God created a world without sin and death (Genesis 1:31, 2:3; cf. Romans 5:12, 8:22). Then in Genesis 3 after the serpent’s temptation, Adam and Eve fall from their original righteous state into sin and separation from God (Genesis 3:7; Ecclesiastes 7:29). After listening to the confessions of Adam and Eve, God then judges the serpent. In Genesis 3:14 God directs his judgment to the serpent (not the evil force behind it) by cursing it. But why curse an amoral creature? Rydelnik points out, “The purpose of cursing the animal is for it to become a perpetual reminder of the devasting destruction caused by the role of the serpent in the sin of Adam and Eve.”7 As part of the curse, the serpent is to crawl on its belly and eat dust, which is a sign of their perpetual humiliation (Psalm 72:9; Isaiah 49:23). The serpent is cursed above all the animals. The prophet Isaiah even says that when the future effects of the curse are reversed in God’s kingdom, the curse on the serpent shall remain forever (Isaiah 65:25).8 This shows that “the serpent will remain an eternal outward symbol of the spiritual defeat of the dark force behind the fall.”9

In Genesis 3:15, God turns his attention to address the evil power that is controlling the serpent. Since animals don’t talk and contradict what God has said, the serpent is surely being controlled by someone, who is later revealed as Satan (Revelation 12:9). God said that there will be “enmity” (ʾêbâ) between the tempter and the woman. In the Old Testament, this word “always refers to enmity between moral agents (persons, not animals).”10 This enmity is between the woman and the tempter who was controlling the serpent. The enmity that exists would not just be between the woman and tempter but would extend to their collective “offspring” (zeraʿ) as well.

The enmity between the offspring (zeraʿ)11 of the serpent and the woman does not take long, as wicked Cain, whose deeds were of Satan (1 John 3:12), killed his righteous brother Abel (Genesis 4:8; cf. Matthew 23:35). Cain and Abel were from the same physical parents (Adam and Eve) but belonged to different spiritual parents (Cain was of Satan and Abel was of God). When God confronts Cain, he uses the same language, “you are cursed from the ground” (Genesis 4:11) that he used of the Serpent, “cursed are you above all livestock” (Genesis 3:14a), suggesting that the serpent is Cain’s spiritual father (cf. Genesis 9:25, 27). In Genesis 4, after Cain kills Abel, God responds by giving Eve another offspring, Seth. Eve’s commentary on God’s provision of another offspring uses terminology found only in Genesis 3:15 (italics in the parallel passages are added to show comparison).

The word “wife” in Genesis 4:25 is the same word for “woman” in Genesis 3:15. Furthermore, Eve’s declaration “God has appointed” uses the same word for “put” in Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity.” In Genesis 4:25, Eve also says that God has appointed for her another offspring (zeraʿ) (Genesis 3:15). Eve interprets “her offspring,” in Genesis 3:15, not in its collective sense, but as speaking of an individual who will defeat the serpent.13

Genesis 3:15 refers to a singular descendant of the woman. This can be seen from the fact that the term “offspring” is used with singular verbs and adjectives, and particularly with singular pronouns.14 The surrounding pronouns show a singular individual is in view: “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).15 The resulting battle leads to the tempters own head being “bruised” (šûp) by a specific descendant of the woman: in other words it will receive a violent blow (Job 9:17). The victory over the tempter is won by a descendant of the woman, but it comes at a cost as he will suffer and die for it, as the tempter bruises the heel of this descendant. This is not a purposeless suffering as the death of the descendant of the woman destroyed the power over death that the tempter once held (Hebrews 2:14).

Messianic Promise and the Torah

To fully understand Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text it must be read not only in the light of the rest of the book of Genesis but the rest of the Torah, as it is one book.

To fully understand Genesis 3:15 as a messianic text, it must be read in the light of not only the rest of the book of Genesis but the rest of the Torah, as it is one book (the book of Moses, Mark 12:26). The hope of the appointed offspring is unveiled progressively through the birth to Eve of Seth (Genesis 4:26, 5:1–32), Noah’s offspring (Genesis 9:9), and the offspring of Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3, 7). Genesis continues to trace the offspring of Abraham through his sons Isaac (Genesis 21:12, 26:24) and Jacob (Genesis 28:13–14) and the twelve sons of Jacob (Genesis 46:7, 48:19). God also promised Abraham that kings would come from him (Genesis 17:6–7), and this same promise was made to Jacob (Genesis 35:11). Significantly, in what is a messianic prediction, the promise is narrowed to a specific descendant of Jacob: Judah, whose descendant will be a royal Messiah who will rule the peoples (Genesis 49:9–10; cf. Psalm 2). The future descendent of the woman in Genesis 3:15 not only will be royal and rule all people but will bless the nations (Genesis 22:17b–18).16

Moses refers to these promises in the prophecies of Balaam in Numbers 24. There Jacob is promised that “Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters” (Numbers 24:7). The next line in the verse describes Jacob’s seed as “his king” whose “kingdom shall be exalted” (Numbers 24:7). Then in Numbers 24:9, this offspring is identified as a lion who comes from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:9–10). This same person will also be blessed (Numbers 24:9) as was Adam (Genesis 1:28), and those against him will be cursed (Numbers 24:9), even as the serpent was cursed (Genesis 3:14). This prophecy regarding the messianic king is eschatological, as it is said to take place “in the last days” (Numbers 24:14; cf. Genesis 49:1).

In the final prophecy of Balaam, there is another promise of a messianic king: “a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). A thematic link to Genesis 3:15 exits in Numbers 24:17 as this messianic king will crush the forehead of the enemies of Israel (Moab), which would remind Israel that the offspring of the woman would crush the head of the enemy.17 The messianic king will also exercise dominion, just as Adam did (Numbers 24:19; cf. Genesis 1:28), which will be over all the nations of the earth (Psalm 72:8; Daniel 7:14). His enemies will “lick the dust” (Psalm 72:9), just as the serpent is told “your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat” (Genesis 3:14).

The rest of the Old Testament traces the person of the Messiah, whose kingdom will last forever (2 Samuel 7:12–13), who will rule with righteousness and wisdom (Isaiah 11:1, 4), whose people will be blessed in him (Psalm 72:17), and whose enemies will be made a footstool for his feet (Psalm 110:1, 6; cf. Genesis 3:15). The promised offspring finds its fulfillment in the New Testament, where Paul identifies Jesus as the “offspring” and fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham (Galatians 3:16). The apostle John tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8).

The examination of the details of the text of Genesis 3:15 and the way those details are used and alluded to in the rest of Genesis and the Torah illuminates that it is indeed a messianic text that speaks of a particular descendant of the woman who will crush the head of the tempter (Satan).

Whom Did Eve Think She Had Gotten?

In Genesis 3:15, God promised a redeemer (the offspring of the woman), but did Eve understand this? The meaning of Eve’s statement in Genesis 4:1 has been debated based on the translation of the Hebrew particle ʾet (אֶת):

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. [italics mine]18

Some translations take ʾet as the preposition “with” (ESV; NASB), which some believe to be either a positive expression (Eve acknowledging God’s help) or as an expression of arrogance (God created the first man, so I [Eve] have created the second man). However, ʾet is most naturally taken as the direct object marker, making the text naturally read: “I have gotten a man, namely, the Lord (YHWH).” In other words, Eve thought the child was the promised seed of Genesis 3:15 (although she was mistaken).

The direct object marker ʾet (אֶת) occurs five times in Genesis 4:1-2 but is only translated once (in verse 1 as “with”, ESV). It would seem the reason ʾet is translated as “with” (or even “from” see NKJV) is that otherwise it looks like Eve was expecting a divine Messiah. The most natural, contextual understanding of Eve’s words is “I have gotten a man, namely, the Lord (YHWH)” although it is theologically objectional to those who do not like Messianic overtones.19 But how do scholars know Eve could not have known this? The New Testament author Jude tells us that Enoch prophesied about the second coming of Christ (Jude 14). If Enoch knew this, then why is it impossible that Eve could not have known about the coming Messiah?