Enmity Between the Woman and the Serpent, with Further Meaning

By William Riley
Olive Tree Ministries
ot.waxahachie@yahoo.com

Q. What does it mean in Gen. 3.15 when it says that God will put enmity between the serpent and the woman, between your seed (serpent) and her seed?

A. This passage of course is talking about the fall of man and the repercussions. There is a lot going on here so we’ll break it down piece by piece to give you a glimpse of what is being said.


For God to put enmity between the serpent and the woman there must have been an affinity to begin with. But, as a result of the fall there will now be hatred. Good and evil have entered the picture now. Biologically a woman does not have seed so that tells us God is referring to something else here at a mystical or spiritual level. The woman is of course seen in Scripture as Israel and the congregation of believers down through the ages. Yeshua is the “seed” referred to here in particular and that is reinforced by Paul in Galatians. The “seed” of the serpent will be the False Messiah in particular.

But, at another level this is seen as believers against unbelievers in a larger sense. There is also another level this can be seen at. In Lev, 19.19 there is a commandment about not mixing 2 kinds of seed together in a field. What the heart of this commandment is saying is the field is the world. The two kinds of seed being referred to are God’s word and Satan’s perversion of it (see Mt 13.1-30). We know that seed will only reproduce after its own kind (Gen. 1.11) and Satan has tried to overtake the “field” by planting tares among the wheat. In other words, false doctrine has been interjected among good doctrine to lead astray many. Anyone who has read these articles for years knows what false doctrine is. But for those who may be reading this for the first time, false doctrine is just that, false teaching. Some examples for today would be that Sunday is the Sabbath now, the Law has been done away with, you can eat pork, Biblical festivals are no longer to be observed and replaced by Christmas, Easter, Lent, St. Valentines Day and the list can go on and on. Satan’s teachers have gone into the field and sowed tares among the wheat, false doctrine among the truth. Through this Satan has tried to establish his kingdom in place of the Kingdom of God.

This strategy isn’t going to work because in the end God will separate true believers from false, but for the time being it is allowed to happen. God’s word is the only “good seed” and it will always bear good fruit and Satan’s false doctrines will always bear bad fruit. That is how you can tell a false teacher (Mt.7.15-27). Anything that is contrary to the clear instruction of the Lord is false. This “mixing” of the seed will go on till the end of the age and it will continue to cause enmity between the seed of the woman (believers) and the seed of the serpent (unbelievers).

Yeshua used this concept many times in the Scriptures referring to those that didn’t believe as being “of your father the devil” (Jn. 8.44) and other places. You have this same concept illustrated in the metaphor of the “sheep and the goats” also. So, seed, wheat and tares, sheep and goats, light and darkness, green branches and dry branches, good fruit and bad fruit, sheep and wolves, good fish and bad fish all illustrate the concept introduced in Gen. 3.15. We are instructed not to mix the truth with error and I’m sorry to say that much of what is taught today is bad seed and it produces bad fruit, or doctrines. We are to put the good seed, the truth of the Word of God in our hearts and minds and it will produce the fruit that the husbandman intended.

All of this, and believe me there is much more, is all wrapped up in this enmity that will exist between the seed of the woman (those who are truly born again and in the body of Yeshua) and those who are of the seed of the serpent (Jn. 8.44).