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1 August 2022 Navigate 'up to the Genesis index: index-genesis.
And I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. They will strike your head, and you will strike their heel.
The word translated here as offspring is, like offspring, a collective singular-looking word of plural import: zera, literally "seed". The word translated here as they is hu, which is grammatically singular on account of the grammatically singular form of zera.
Religious interpreters have taken the formally singular nature of hu and taken it literally, as referring to a single future human to have victory over the serpent: Jesus, or Mary. In the case of Mary, this interpretation comes via a Latin feminine translation of the grammatical masculine Hebrew hu.
The more straightforward thing is to read the drama in the garden as a prelude to the relationship between humankind, "the seed of Eve," and snakes, "the seed of the serpent," who descend from the primeval cursed serpent. A trace of this original conflict can be found in the way that humans are hostile to snakes, how they step on them (on purpose or accidentally), and how snakes then bite people on the leg.
Instead of strike, the RVmargin suggests the alternate reading "lie in wait".
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