Texts in Conversation
Genesis 3 uses unusual grammar to describe the conflict between the woman and the serpent. The Greek Septuagint struggled with this and translated it with a neutral verb meaning “watch carefully,” perhaps to avoid making any interpretive commitment.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 3:15
Hebrew Bible
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life. 15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 3:15
Septuagint
14 And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this you are cursed above all cattle and all the brutes of the earth, on your breast and belly you shall go, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, he shall watch against your head, and you shall watch against his heel. 16 And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pains and your groanings; in pain you shall bring forth children, and your return shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A further punishment on the serpent is the continual enmity between serpents and mankind ... How this enmity is actualized is explained in the second part of the verse. In the Hebrew this is mutually expressed by a difficult verbal root. This verb also occurs at Job 9:17 and Psalm 139:11, but neither is any help in establishing its meaning. It has been variously interpreted to mean "crush," "bruise," or "pant after." The Septuagint of Genesis also had trouble with the verb and so used a neutral verb 'to watch carefully.' The translator understood the mutually wary relations between man and snakes and chose a verb to bring this out ..."
John William Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis, SCS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1993), 44.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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