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Genesis 3:15

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.

KJV

Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius : ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus.

Vulgate

καὶ ἔχθραν θήσω ἀνὰ μέσον σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τῆς γυναικός, καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματός σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς· αὐτός σου τηρήσει κεφαλήν, καὶ σὺ τηρήσεις αὐτοῦ πτέρναν.

LXX

and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

ASV

וְ/אֵיבָ֣ה אָשִׁ֗ית בֵּֽינְ/ךָ֙ וּ/בֵ֣ין הָֽ/אִשָּׁ֔ה וּ/בֵ֥ין זַרְעֲ/ךָ֖ וּ/בֵ֣ין זַרְעָ֑/הּ ה֚וּא יְשׁוּפְ/ךָ֣ רֹ֔אשׁ וְ/אַתָּ֖ה תְּשׁוּפֶ֥/נּוּ עָקֵֽב

Hebrew

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In the original Hebrew

10 distinct Hebrew words appear in this verse.

אֵיבַ֥ת
'ybt
noun · 5×
אַתָּ֣ה
'th
pronoun · 1088×
בֵּ֥ין
byn
noun · 405×
ה֖וּא
hv'
pronoun · 1878×
הוּ
hv
verb · 85×
וֹ
v
noun · 780×
וֹ
v
noun · 226×
נִי
ny
pronoun · 4×
עָקֵֽב
'qb
noun · 13×
רֹ֣אשׁ
r'sh
noun · 593×

Intertextual echoes

Quoted or echoed by 1 later passage.

  • Rev 12:9 · echo
    "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
    Genesis: serpent cursed — the dragon identified as the ancient serpent

Themes

Doctrines that cite this verse

Prophecy

Typology

Covenant

Historic Christian voices

19 passages from patristic writers, Reformers, and church catechisms citing this verse.

§55This revelation was not broken off by our first parents' sin. "After the fall, (God) buoyed them up with the hope of salvation, by promising redemption; and he has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing."7 Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not …
§400The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.283 Becau…
§410After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall.304 This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a des…
…and 2 more from this source.
One and the same God the Father inflicts punishment on the reprobate, and bestows rewards on the elect. 1. It is therefore one and the same God the Father who has prepared good things with Himself for those who desire His fellowship, and who remain in subjection to Him; and who has the eternal fire for the ringleader of the apostasy, the devil, and those who revolted with him, …
Christ is the head of all things already mentioned. It was fitting that He should be sent by the Father, the Creator of all things, to assume human nature, and should be tempted by Satan, that He might fulfil the promises, and carry off a glorious and perfect victory. 1. He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, an…
The Boundary between Original Innocence and Redemption Answering the question on the unity and indissolubility of marriage, Christ referred to what was written about marriage in Genesis. In our two preceding reflections we analyzed both the so-called Elohist text (Gn 1) and the Yahwist one (Gn 2). Today we wish to draw some conclusions from these analyses. When Christ referre…
The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wh…
Now the serpent was more subtle. Moses does not speak of the serpent as it was in itself, but as the instrument of Satan. The fall of man was not a light or trivial transgression but a dreadful abomination. By one man sin entered into the world: Adam, being the head and root of the human race, corrupted and ruined all his posterity. Yet in the very curse God gives the first gle…
1. The Power of Harmony in Relation to Prayer. Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them. Matthew 18:19 The word symphony is strictly applied to the harmonies of sounds in music. And there are indeed among musical sounds some accordant and others discordant. But the Evangelic Scripture is fam…
Q. How do you come to know this? A. The holy gospel tells me. God himself began to reveal this gospel already in Paradise; later, he proclaimed it by the holy patriarchs and prophets, and portrayed it by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law; finally, he fulfilled it through his own dear Son.
We believe that our good God, by marvelous divine wisdom and goodness, seeing that Adam and Eve had plunged themselves in this manner into both physical and spiritual death and made themselves completely miserable, set out to find them, though they, trembling all over, were fleeing from God. And God comforted them, promising to give them his Son, born of a woman, to crush the h…
The Gospel is opposed to the law. For the law works wrath and announces the curse, but the Gospel preaches grace and blessing. John says: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Yet it is most certain that those who were before the law and under the law, were not altogether destitute of the Gospel. For they had extraordinary evangelical…
Rashi reads the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent as a straightforward statement about the natural hostility between humans and snakes. Humans will crush snakes' heads, and snakes will strike at humans' heels. This is peshat — the plain meaning of the text. Rashi does not apply a messianic reading here, in contrast to the Christian typological tra…
He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head. See Gen. iii. 15. And this was made manifest when the seed of the woman crushed the head of the serpent; which is to say, the Lord, born of the virgin. And as by one man's di…

Cross-references

  • 1John 3:8 — He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
  • 1John 3:8 — He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
  • 1John 3:10 — In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
  • 1John 5:5 — Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
  • 1Pet 1:11 — Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
  • 1Pet 1:20 — Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
  • 1Tim 2:15 — Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
  • Acts 2:35 — Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
  • Acts 13:10 — And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?
  • Acts 26:23 — That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
  • Acts 28:3 — And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand.
  • Col 2:15 — And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
  • Col 2:15 — And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
  • Eph 4:8 — Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
  • Gal 4:4 — But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
  • Gal 4:4 — But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
  • Heb 1:1 — God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
  • Heb 2:9 — But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
  • Heb 2:14 — Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil
  • Heb 2:14 — Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil
  • Heb 2:18 — For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
  • Heb 5:7 — Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
  • Heb 10:5 — Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
  • Heb 10:7 — Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
  • Isa 7:14 — Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
  • Isa 7:14 — Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
  • Isa 46:10 — Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
  • Isa 53:3 — He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
  • Isa 53:5 — But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
  • Isa 53:12 — Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he
  • Isa 53:12 — Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he
  • Isa 57:3 — But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
  • Jer 31:22 — How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
  • Jer 31:22 — How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
  • Job 19:25 — For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
  • John 1:17 — For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
  • John 1:45 — Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
  • John 5:46 — For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
  • John 8:44 — Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he
  • John 8:44 — Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he