Was there any hope on the day sin began?
Genesis 3, and who the serpent is.
The short answer Settled
Yes. In the same scene in which God pronounced death, He told the serpent that the woman's Seed would bruise its head. The serpent is Satan, so at the very beginning God announced the defeat of the one who brought sin into the world.
What God told the serpent
The woman named the one who deceived her: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (). God turned first to the serpent, cursed it, and then said: "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" ().
God Himself puts the enmity in place: "I will put." The same Hebrew verb describes both blows, and the difference is where they land: the serpent's head, and the Seed's heel. A bruised heel slows a man down. A blow to the head ends the fight. is often called the first gospel, the first good news in Scripture, and it was spoken on the day of the first sin.
Who the serpent is
Revelation names him: "that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world" (), and again, "that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan" (). The serpent in the garden was the one behind the first sin.
The New Testament also says what the Son of God came to do to him. The Son shared in flesh and blood "that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (). "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (). Neither verse quotes , and this page's answer does not rest on them. What the Son did is the next question: What did Jesus Christ accomplish?
The usual objection
can be read as a story about why people and snakes do not get along: snakes strike at heels, and people strike at heads. On that reading, the account of the fall ends in judgment and nothing more. The Bible's opening chapters announce no remedy, and salvation is an idea that comes later.
The serpent in Genesis 3 is no ordinary snake. It deceived the woman, and Revelation names it as the Devil and Satan. God Himself puts the enmity in place, and the outcome He announces is a blow to the serpent's head. In the same scene in which He pronounced the sentence of death, God announced the defeat of the one who brought it.
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ וּבֵין זַרְעָהּ uven zar'akha uven zar'ah, "between your seed and her Seed" (Strong's 996, 2233) | Nouns with "your" and "her" | Offspring: the line of the serpent set against the line of the woman. | |
| הוּא יְשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ hu yeshufekha rosh, "He shall bruise your head" (1931, 7779, 7218) | Pronoun "He"; Qal imperfect | The Seed of the woman strikes the head of the serpent. | |
| וְאַתָּה תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ עָקֵב ve'attah teshufennu aqev, "And you shall bruise His heel" (859, 7779, 6119) | Pronoun "you"; Qal imperfect | The same verb for the blow of the serpent, which lands on the heel. | |
| ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος ho ophis ho archaios, "that serpent of old" (3789, 744) | Noun with adjective | The serpent from the beginning, named as the Devil and Satan. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.