Genesis 3:14-15

3:14 The Lord God said to the serpent, ¹ 

“Because you have done this,

cursed ²  are you above all the wild beasts

and all the living creatures of the field!

On your belly you will crawl ³ 

and dust you will eat ⁴  all the days of your life.

3:15 And I will put hostility ⁵  between you and the woman

and between your offspring and her offspring; ⁶ 

her offspring will attack ⁷  your head,

and ⁸  you ⁹  will attack her offspring’s heel.” ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 65:25

65:25 A wolf and a lamb will graze together; ¹¹ 

a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, ¹² 

and a snake’s food will be dirt. ¹³ 

They will no longer injure or destroy

on my entire royal mountain,” ¹⁴  says the Lord.

Micah 7:17

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ¹⁵ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ¹⁶ 

they will be terrified ¹⁷  of you. ¹⁸ 

Matthew 3:7

3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees ¹⁹  and Sadducees ²⁰  coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

Matthew 23:23

23:23 “Woe to you, experts in the law ²¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth ²²  of mint, dill, and cumin, ²³  yet you neglect what is more important in the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You ²⁴  should have done these things without neglecting the others.

John 8:44

8:44 You people ²⁵  are from ²⁶  your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires. ²⁷  He ²⁸  was a murderer from the beginning, and does not uphold the truth, ²⁹  because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, ³⁰  he speaks according to his own nature, ³¹  because he is a liar and the father of lies. ³² 

John 8:2

8:2 Early in the morning he came to the temple courts again. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach ³³  them.

Colossians 1:3

Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Church

1:3 We always ³⁴  give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

Colossians 1:13

1:13 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, ³⁵ 

Titus 1:12

1:12 A certain one of them, in fact, one of their own prophets, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ³⁶ 

[3:14]  ¹ sn Note that God asks no question of the serpent, does not call for confession, as he did to the man and the woman; there is only the announcement of the curse. The order in this section is chiastic: The man is questioned, the woman is questioned, the serpent is cursed, sentence is passed on the woman, sentence is passed on the man.

[3:14]  ² tn The Hebrew word translated “cursed,” a passive participle from אָרָר (’arar), either means “punished” or “banished,” depending on how one interprets the following preposition. If the preposition is taken as comparative, then the idea is “cursed [i.e., punished] are you above [i.e., more than] all the wild beasts.” In this case the comparative preposition reflects the earlier comparison: The serpent was more shrewd than all others, and so more cursed than all others. If the preposition is taken as separative (see the note on the word “ground” in 4:11), then the idea is “cursed and banished from all the wild beasts.” In this case the serpent is condemned to isolation from all the other animals.

[3:14]  ³ tn Heb “go”; “walk,” but in English “crawl” or “slither” better describes a serpent’s movement.

[3:14]  ⁴ sn Dust you will eat. Being restricted to crawling on the ground would necessarily involve “eating dust,” although that is not the diet of the serpent. The idea of being brought low, of “eating dust” as it were, is a symbol of humiliation.

[3:15]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew word translated “hostility” is derived from the root אֵיב (’ev, “to be hostile, to be an adversary [or enemy]”). The curse announces that there will be continuing hostility between the serpent and the woman. The serpent will now live in a “battle zone,” as it were.

[3:15]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew word translated “offspring” is a collective singular. The text anticipates the ongoing struggle between human beings (the woman’s offspring) and deadly poisonous snakes (the serpent’s offspring). An ancient Jewish interpretation of the passage states: “He made the serpent, cause of the deceit, press the earth with belly and flank, having bitterly driven him out. He aroused a dire enmity between them. The one guards his head to save it, the other his heel, for death is at hand in the proximity of men and malignant poisonous snakes.” See Sib. Or. 1:59-64. For a similar interpretation see Josephus, Ant. 1.1.4 (1.50-51).

[3:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “he will attack [or “bruise”] you [on] the head.” The singular pronoun and verb agree grammatically with the collective singular noun “offspring.” For other examples of singular verb and pronominal forms being used with the collective singular “offspring,” see Gen 16:10; 22:17; 24:60. The word “head” is an adverbial accusative, locating the blow. A crushing blow to the head would be potentially fatal.

[3:15]  ⁸ tn Or “but you will…”; or “as they attack your head, you will attack their heel.” The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) is understood as contrastive. Both clauses place the subject before the verb, a construction that is sometimes used to indicate synchronic action (see Judg 15:14).

[3:15]  ⁹ sn You will attack her offspring’s heel. Though the conflict will actually involve the serpent’s offspring (snakes) and the woman’s offspring (human beings), v. 15b for rhetorical effect depicts the conflict as being between the serpent and the woman’s offspring, as if the serpent will outlive the woman. The statement is personalized for the sake of the addressee (the serpent) and reflects the ancient Semitic concept of corporate solidarity, which emphasizes the close relationship between a progenitor and his offspring. Note Gen 28:14, where the Lord says to Jacob, “Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you [second masculine singular] will spread out in all directions.” Jacob will “spread out” in all directions through his offspring, but the text states the matter as if this will happen to him personally.

[3:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you will attack him [on] the heel.” The verb (translated “attack”) is repeated here, a fact that is obscured by some translations (e.g., NIV “crush…strike”). The singular pronoun agrees grammatically with the collective singular noun “offspring.” For other examples of singular verb and pronominal forms being used with the collective singular “offspring,” see Gen 16:10; 22:17; 24:60. The word “heel” is an adverbial accusative, locating the blow. A bite on the heel from a poisonous serpent is potentially fatal.

[65:25]  ¹¹ sn A similar statement appears in 11:6.

[65:25]  ¹² sn These words also appear in 11:7.

[65:25]  ¹³ sn Some see an allusion to Gen 3:14 (note “you will eat dirt”). The point would be that even in this new era the snake (often taken as a symbol of Satan) remains under God’s curse. However, it is unlikely that such an allusion exists. Even if there is an echo of Gen 3:14, the primary allusion is to 11:8, where snakes are pictured as no longer dangerous. They will no longer attack other living creatures, but will be content to crawl along the ground. (The statement “you will eat dirt” in Gen 3:14 means “you will crawl on the ground.” In the same way the statement “dirt will be its food” in Isa 65:25 means “it will crawl on the ground.”)

[65:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in all my holy mountain.” These same words appear in 11:9. See the note there.

[7:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ¹⁶ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

[7:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ¹⁸ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.

[3:7]  ¹⁹ sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.

[3:7]  ²⁰ sn The Sadducees controlled the official political structures of Judaism at this time, being the majority members of the Sanhedrin. They were known as extremely strict on law and order issues (Josephus, J. W. 2.8.2 [2.119], 2.8.14 [2.164-166]; Ant. 13.5.9 [13.171-173], 13.10.6 [13.293-298], 18.1.2 [18.11], 18.1.4 [18.16-17], 20.9.1 [20.199]; Life 2 [10-11]). See also Matt 16:1-12; 22:23-34; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38; Acts 5:17; 23:6-8.

[23:23]  ²¹ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:23]  ²² tn Or “you tithe mint.”

[23:23]  ²³ sn Cumin (alternately spelled cummin) was an aromatic herb native to the Mediterranean region. Its seeds were used for seasoning.

[23:23]  ²⁴ tc ‡ Many witnesses (B C K L W Δ 0102 33 565 892 pm) have δέ (de, “but”) after ταῦτα (tauta, “these things”), while many others lack it (א D Γ Θ Ë^1,13 579 700 1241 1424 pm). Since asyndeton was relatively rare in Koine Greek, the conjunction may be an intentional alteration, and is thus omitted from the present translation. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[8:44]  ²⁵ tn The word “people” is supplied in the translation to clarify that the Greek pronoun and verb are plural.

[8:44]  ²⁶ tn Many translations read “You are of your father the devil” (KJV, ASV, RSV, NASB) or “You belong to your father, the devil” (NIV), but the Greek preposition ἐκ (ek) emphasizes the idea of source or origin. Jesus said his opponents were the devil’s very offspring (a statement which would certainly infuriate them).

[8:44]  ²⁷ tn Grk “the desires of your father you want to do.”

[8:44]  ²⁸ tn Grk “That one” (referring to the devil).

[8:44]  ²⁹ tn Grk “he does not stand in the truth” (in the sense of maintaining, upholding, or accepting the validity of it).

[8:44]  ³⁰ tn Grk “Whenever he speaks the lie.”

[8:44]  ³¹ tn Grk “he speaks from his own.”

[8:44]  ³² tn Grk “because he is a liar and the father of it.”

[8:2]  ³³ tn An ingressive sense for the imperfect fits well here following the aorist participle.

[1:3]  ³⁴ tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).

[1:13]  ³⁵ tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).

[1:12]  ³⁶ sn A saying attributed to the poet Epimenides of Crete (6th century b.c.).