He describes a future conflict between a descendant of Eve and the descendants of the Serpent.

It is the ultimate conflict between good and evil.

Remember that the third chapter of Genesis describes the fall of mankind into sin. It gives us the narrative of the temptation and the sin of Adam and Eve. You might expect that the Old Testament history of God's relationship to mankind

would start with Genesis 1-1 in the beginning God created the heaven and earth and that the Bible would end in

Genesis 314 and we would expect it to say and God destroyed the heaven and the earth and everything in it once human beings rebelled

against his divine authority.

But instead, he makes a promise.

He makes a promise to spare, to rescue, to redeem, and to save his fallen creatures.

Let's look at it in chapter 3 of Genesis.

This is the record of God's cursing of the Serpent who seduced Adam and Eve.

And so the Lord God said to the serpent,

because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

Now here comes the promise.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

This is a prophecy.

God is not saying here that Eve is going to crush the serpent's head.

He's talking about something in the future.

We don't know yet how far off in the future it is,

but he speaks of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

He describes a future conflict, a future contest between a descendant of Eve and

the descendants of the Serpent.

...