The Twofold Curse
Genesis 3:15
3:8–21 THE TWOFOLD CURSE
Each curse was twofold. The serpent was directly cursed; it received a physical curse and the promise that it would ultimately be crushed by the seed of the woman (3:15). God promised that he would execute his rule through the seed of the woman and Christ came as a fulfillment of that promise. The victory of Christ was a direct crushing of Satan in fulfillment of this curse, for Satan was behind the serpent in Eden (Rom. 16:20; Rev. 12:9; 20:2).
The woman received the consequences of her actions, though they were not called a curse. The conflict between the man and the woman, foretold in the words “desire” and “master” in Genesis 3:16, is seen in the same Hebrew words used in 4:7. The strain that would occur between man and woman was in regard to the man’s ruling and supremacy over the woman. The world of man-woman relationships specifically and all relationships generally had fallen prey to the upside-down chaos that resulted from Adam’s sin. The consequences for women also included suffering great pain in childbirth. Thus, the only means of fulfilling God’s promise to crush the serpent’s head with the heel of someone born of a woman was through the child-bearing sufferings of a woman.
Adam also was not directly cursed, but the earth was cursed on his account, as Paul later noted in Romans 8:20–22. The curse on the earth has caused toil and frustration for humanity. Work is not a result of the curse; toil and frustration are. Another result of Adam’s sin was physical death (Gen. 3:19). Paul also noted that the root of death was in Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:14–15).
Adam exercised faith and hope when he named the woman Eve (Gen. 3:20), for he looked to the life that the woman would bring forth. Adam and Eve could now only hope in the promise that someone born to Eve would undo the curses that they had caused through disobedience. The issue of Adam and Eve’s shame at their nakedness confirmed the split between man and woman. They were no longer the original and pure “one flesh” that God had created them to be. God confirmed their instincts of shame by making clothing and covering them (3:21; cf. 3:7).
Hughes, Robert B., and J. Carl Laney. Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001. Print. The Tyndale Reference Library.
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