14 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. 15 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.”REFLECTIONSWritten by Stephen SheadThese verses blow me away, because they work on two very different levels – and they’re such an amazing example of how God has crafted the story of the Bible with surprises that no human could have devised.On the ordinary, everyday level, this is a picture of how snakes and people don’t tend to get on too well. When I was a child, my family lived in south India, where encounters between humans and deadly cobras or vipers were common. We even had a pet mongoose to help catch them! Throughout the ages, a constant part of village life in Asia, the Middle East and Africa has always been the battle between broomstick and fang: will the housewife crush the critter’s head before it manages to jab her heel?But the genius of these verses is the way they talk about the woman’s “offspring” (or “seed”, as the footnote in the NIV says). The everyday level is about snakes and all of Eve’s descendants. But the word “offspring” can also refer to one descendant in particular. And as the story of salvation develops, the focus narrows in on the offspring of Abraham – and then on the royal line of David, the mini-Messiah.That finally leads to the one “seed” or descendant of Abraham who fulfilled every promise of salvation that God has ever made: Jesus the Messiah (see Galatians 3:16). In that light, Genesis 3 becomes about so much more than “man versus snake”. Behind the serpent who deceived the woman is “the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray” (Rev. 12:9). And these verses from Genesis turn out to be God’s very first promise that Eve’s greatest descendant, the Lord Jesus, would “break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Amazingly, Hebrews tells us, Jesus did that by his death – by allowing himself to be struck in our place.I still find snakes pretty scary. But praise God that we no longer have to fear the devil – Jesus has ripped his fangs out! Because even his most terrifying weapon – death itself – has been swallowed up through Jesus’ death and resurrection for us. And one day, God will crush Satan himself under our feet! (Romans 16:20)QUESTIONGod tells the serpent that one of Eve’s great great great grandchildren will crush him. How did Jesus defeat Satan?ABOUT THE AUTHORStephen loved reading books about snakes when he was a kid, and still finds them strangely fascinating.