The Bible is full of prophecies about the fate of the world, individual nations and specific people. And some biblical books are even called prophetic, that is, proclaiming, as the Church believes, the will of God: such are the books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel …
Not all of these prophecies are clear, and some seem completely dark. But even the most incomprehensible prophecies necessarily have a meaning, and often very deep and important for us.
One of the very first prophecies that we come across when opening the Bible was pronounced by the Lord Himself, addressing Satan. A fallen spirit disguised as a serpent entered heaven and seduced primordial people - Eve, and through her, and Adam. Trusting the word of the serpent and wanting to become like gods who know good and evil (Gen. 3: 5), people broke the only commandment that they received from God in paradise, and tasted the fruit of a tree that stood in the middle of the garden of paradise. By accepting from Satan the idea that the Lord's warning by death was a deception, they destroyed the relationship of mutual trust with God. From that moment, as the Lord had warned, Adam and Eve became mortal beings doomed to live in a not very hospitable world, in painful agony to give birth to children and in the sweat of their brow, that is, by hard and exhausting work, to get food for themselves (cf. Gen 3: 16-19).
But to the serpent, or rather to Satan, the Lord said words that were completely incomprehensible at first glance:
So, Satan has to be at enmity with his wife and, even more surprisingly, with her seed. It ("seed") will hit Satan in the head, although he can bite him in the heel.
What does all this mean? And what kind of seed can a wife have?
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How to explain it
The word "seed" in the Bible often refers to the offspring of a person. God Himself calls Isaac and his descendants the seed of Abraham (Gen. 21:12); Moses, referring to the Israelites, calls them the seed of the fathers - the righteous Old Testament (Deut 10:15); one of Job's friends calls the descendants of Job a numerous seed (Job 5:25), etc.
But pay attention: in all these examples (and in others that could be cited) we are talking about the offspring of a man. And God emphasizes that the woman's seed will be at enmity with Satan …
There was only one example in the history of mankind when a woman gave birth to a child without the participation of a man. This Child was the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the promise of the “seed of the woman,” we have nothing more than a prediction about the Savior, Who will be born of the Virgin, smite the serpent - the devil, and deliver mankind from his power: this is how all the holy fathers understood this place. This promise is also called the First Gospel. After all, "the gospel" in Greek is "good news." And the Lord, at the very beginning of human history, consoles our sinful ancestors, announcing the defeat of the coming Savior to the devil.
The infant Christ is depicted in a circle on the breast of the Virgin. The icon indicates the incarnation of the Savior as the Protector of the world. Mother of God. Icon of the Sign. Yaroslavl. Around 1218.
True, the serpent will be able to "sting his heel." In the symbolic meaning, the heel “is the lowest and most insignificant part of the human composition,” says St. Philaret of Moscow, Metropolitan of Moscow: this part of the prophecy is about the wounding of all believers “by temptations, calamities, bodily death”. Why is this needed? For this, St. Philaret explains, "so that a person is not careless in relation to a murderer and by the incessant experience of evil, we urge him to turn to good."
But the Conqueror of the devil Himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, will also suffer from him. Satan, called in the Revelation of the holy Apostle John the Theologian "the ancient serpent" (Rev. 12: 9), will receive the power and Christ Himself "to bite in the heel", that is, to wound Him in the most vulnerable place - His human flesh. This is the prediction that Christ will suffer as a man - and thereby defeat the enemy.
Why this prophecy matters
This is the first biblical mention of the coming of the Savior, who will deliver a person from the consequences of original sin.
Where can you hear the words of prophecy today?
Fragments of the book of Genesis (from which this passage is taken) and some other Old Testament books are heard in the temple at the morning services of Great Lent and are called paremias. The prophecy about the "seed of the woman" that will smite the head of the serpent is read on Friday of the first week of Great Lent.
Prepared by Igor Tsukanov
