3:15. “I will set
hatred between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. They
will strike at your head, and you will strike at their heels.” This
punishment reverses the circumstance of the easy relationship between the snake
and the woman. Rather than open discourse, there will be open enmity. This
verse explains why, in the present world, humans have such a negative visceral
reaction to snakes.
The balanced couplet hûʾ
yəšûpəkā rōʾš wəʾattâ təšûpennû ʿāqēb (“they [lit. ‘he’] shall strike at
your head, and you shall strike at their [lit. ‘his’[ heels”), shows the kind
of hate that henceforth colors the relationship between humans and snakes. The
pronouns for “they” and “you” are in the singular but are meant as collectives.
(The singular pronouns for “they” and “you” are in the singular, but are meant
as collectives. (The singular pronouns gave rise to later messianic
interpretations of this verse in Judaism and Christianity—“he” identified with
the messiah and “you” with Satan. Cf. the common Catholic iconography with Mary
as the woman with the snake under her feet.) The verb šûp in both
clauses means something like “bruise, crush.” This verb has a wordplay with a
type of snake, šəpîpōn, which is an onomatopoetic name, “the hisser,”
for a type of venomous snake. (Nāḥāš, “snake,” and šəpîpōn are
parallel terms in 49:17). This makes the mutual striking like the hissing of
snakes. The words “head” and “heels” are objects of the verbs, but elsewhere
they connote a merism of totality, “from head to heels,” total enmity. (Ronald
Hendel, Genesis 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB
1A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024], 187)
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