So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:14-15 NIV

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 NIV

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 NIV

When we left our protagonists in Lessons from the Garden: Hide and Seek they were standing before G-d, along with the serpent, and had just admitted their guilt; albeit with qualifications. The only thing left now was the sentence. Since G-d started with the serpent, I will start there as well.

G-d’s judgement on the serpent has two parts. First G-d curses the serpent with crawling on the ground. Why curse the serpent, that was used by Satan? One assumes that the serpent itself was just a “dumb” animal, and in that sense innocent of any guilt. Admittedly, I had to do some research here, so of course, I Googled it!

G-d cursed the serpent because the serpent was the physical manifestation of Satan. In making the serpent crawl on the ground and eat dust, G-d is reminding man and Satan, of Satan’s fallen state and humiliation. Elsewhere scripture indicates that Satan, as Lucifer (the Light Bearer), was the most beautiful and intelligent of all of G-d’s creation. Now, he had made himself the lowest of G-d’s creation.

In addition to being humiliated and made the lowest of the low, there is another part to G-d’s punishment of the Satan. Before going there, it does well to remember that when man sinned and put his faith in Satan instead of G-d, he turned the title deed of Earth over to him. Man was no longer ruler, Satan was (and is). We can now go on to the second part.

Just as Satan had enlisted man in his rebellion against G-d, G-d was now going to use a man to ultimately defeat Satan. But there would be something unique about this man. He would be the from the women, not from the man. This “seed” of the woman, as some texts have it, would be injured by the serpent, but He would, in the end, crush the head of the serpent. Satan would be defeated and one presumes that man would once again hold the title deed to Earth.

The question here is, why from the seed of the women? I believe it is because the law had been given directly to the man, and only secondarily, through the man, one presumes, to the woman. This made the man responsible. The woman of course shares the guilt, but ultimately not the responsibility; that goes to man. It wasn’t until the man ate the fruit that “their eyes were opened”. As such, the corruption of man due to the sin of his rebellion would be passed down through the man, but not through the woman.

This, of course, is interpreted by many to be the first prophecy of the Messiah, and the first indication of the virgin birth. Somehow, the woman would bear a child that would not come from the man, but from the woman.

This brings us to the punishment of the woman. G-d said that she would have pain in childbirth, and that she would be dependent on the man. These two things go hand in hand. Since the woman would bear the children, this leaves it to the man to protect the woman and the children, and to provide for them.

For man, the punishment was hard work for his entire life. G-d cursed the ground so that man would be able to produce food from it only with great labor. In the end, he would die, as promised, and his body would return to the dust from which it came.

One thing I think I see is a qualitative difference between the punishment meted out to Satan and the punishment meted out to the man and the woman. While they were all under a death sentence, Satan is offered no hope. His head would be crushed by the seed of the woman. Man, on the other hand, would live on, if only through his progeny. In fact, it would be a descendant of the woman that would crush the old serpent’s head.

All this begs the question though, “What is its purpose?” If all men were going to die, and that was actually the end, what would be the point? Isn’t the implication that man’s death is not a permanent state? Now, ok, I can be credibly accused of reading back into the story something that isn’t there, yet, but I see hope for man in this story. For man, it is not the end, but the beginning.

Next installment: Lessons from the Garden: Exile and Mortality