Adonai, God, said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all livestock and wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and eat dust as long as you live. I will put animosity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:14-15
I love listening to the teachings of Messianic Rabbis and teachers. There is so much you learn from the Hebrew text and meanings that you may not ever hear in Western preaching. An example for myself can be demonstrated with these two verses in Genesis and changed the way that I looked at them.
There is no question that this is the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible. But there is one word that I have read past for years and never thought of the true implications of what was being said until watching Pod For Israel, and podcast put out by www.oneforisrael.org. That word is “seed”. The word seed in Hebrew, according to the Brown Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, zera’ (zeh;-rah) has definitions of: seed, sowing, offspring, a sowing, seed, semen virile, offspring, descendants, posterity, children, of moral quality, a practitioner of righteousness, sowing time. From a biological standpoint, this is a contradiction as the verse is talking about “the woman”. Women are not the carriers of seed, but of the egg, so how could it be possible from a woman to have a seed? The possibility is found in the Gospels, and His miraculous conception through Miryam (Mary).
The Gospel of Luke speaks of Gabriel visiting her saying, “Shalom, favored lady! Adonai is with you!” Look! You will become pregnant, you will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua. He will be great; he will be called Son of Ha’Elyon. Adonai, God, will give him the throne of his father David; and he will rule the House of Ya’akov (Jacob) forever – there will be no end to his Kingdom.” “How can this be,” asked Miryam of the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered her, “The Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit) will come over you, and the power of Ha’Elyon will cover you. Therefore, the holy child born to you will be called the Son of God.” Luke 1:28-35
When we look back at the definitions for seed, we see “of moral quality and a practitioner of righteousness”. As Mary was called “favored lady”, it is no doubt that she embodied both of these descriptions. She treasured the things of God in her heart, and she was obedient to the Lord. She was the woman that would bring forth that first Messianic promise, and He would fulfill that first Messianic prophecy.
Genesis 3:14-15 are verses I will never see the same again. They are not just the first promise of Yeshua, but they are so specific about how He would come into this world and set us free and crush the head of the enemy, the serpent, Satan. In a few words, it speaks of His miraculous conception that is spoken of in greater detail by the prophet Isaiah. And what is even more amazing is that we can look at the words of Yeshua Himself, “Yeshua gave them this answer: ‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Yes, indeed! I tell you that unless a grain of wheat that falls to the ground dies, it stays just a grain; but if it dies, it produces a big harvest.” John 12:23-24
Yeshua spoke of Himself as a seed while speaking to his disciples of his crucifixion and resurrection, pointing all the way back to the beginning, to Genesis chapter 3 and how through His death the harvest would be monumental, and the snake would be crushed forever.
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