Genesis 3:14

And the Lord God said unto the serpent,.... And to the devil in it; for what follows may be applied to both; literally to the serpent, and mystically to Satan; both are punished, and that very

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all

Unto the serpent; or rather, this or that serpent, which, as was said before on , was no ordinary serpent, but a serpent acted and assisted by the devil; and therefore this sentence or curse is pronounced against both of them: 1. Against the serpent itself, which though an unreasonable creature, and therefore not subject to a law, and consequently not capable of guilt or sin, , yet, being the instrument of the devil’ s malice, is rightly punished; as other beasts being abused by man’ s sin did suffer together with him, , not for their crime, but partly for the punishment, and partly for the benefit of man, who is their lord and owner, ; for whose sake seeing they were made, it is not strange if they be punished for his use, that in their punishment man might have a demonstration of God’ s anger against sin, and a motive to repentance. See Poole on "", and following verses to . See Poole on "", and following verses to . 2. Against the devil, who is here principally intended, though as he lay hid in the body of the serpent which he possessed and used, so his curse is here mentioned under the cover of the serpent’ s curse, and under the disguise of such terms as properly and literally agree to the serpent, but are also mystically to be understood concerning the devil; with whom the Lord entertaineth no conference, as he did with Adam and Eve, whose sin was less than his, and whom God meant to bring to repentance; but immediately denounceth the curse against him, as one that sinned against much greater knowledge, and from far worse principles, not from mistake or misinformation, but from choice and rebellion, from hatred of God, and from mere envy and implacable malice against men. Because thou hast done this, deceived the woman, and tempted her to this sin, thou art cursed; or, shalt be from henceforth, both really and in the opinion of all mankind: or, be thou. Every beast of the field; as in other respects, so particularly in that which here follows; upon thy belly shalt thou go. If the serpent did so before the fall, what then was natural, is now become painful and shameful to it, as nakedness and some other things were to man. But it seems more probable that this serpent before the fall either had feet, or rather did go with its breast erect, as the basilisk at this day doth; God peradventure so ordering it as a testimony that some other serpents did once go so.

Genesis 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:Ver. 14. And the Lord said to the serpent.] The serpent was not examined, because God would show no mercy to him; but presently doomed, because of mere malice he had offended. The heathens called certain devils, Kοβαλοι, quasi χαχοβοθλοι, ηδεκακηβουληπαρβουλευσαντικυκιστη Evil befell him that evil bethought him. As Balaam, that advised evil against Israel, was slain by the sword of Israel. The serpent also hath his part in the punishment, because instrumental to the devil. Both authors, actors, and abettors of evil shall rue it together. The serpent here is first cut shorter by the feet, and made to wriggle upon his belly; secondly, confined to the dust for his diet; which is also, saith an ancient, χαταβρωματουεχθρου, the devil’ s diet: for your adversary the devil - that "ruler of the darkness of this world" as he dwells in dark hearts, as so many holes and caverns - so, Behemoth-like, "he eats grass as an ox"; yea, dust as a serpent, continually "seeking whom he may devour"; and is therefore cursed above all creatures. He hath swallowed down souls, "and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly." He sinneth every day the sin against the Holy Ghost, and shall lie lowest in hell. Every soul that he drew thither by his temptation shall be as a millstone hanged about his neck, to hold him down in the bottomless lake. Hesiod.

(14, 15) Unto the serpent.—As the serpent had tempted our first parents purposely and consciously in order to lead them into sin, he stood there without excuse, and received a threefold penalty. The outward form of the condemnation is made suitable to the shape which the tempter had assumed; but the true force and meaning, especially in the last and most intense portion of the sentence, belong, not to the animal, but to Satan himself. The serpent is but the type: diabolic agency the reality. First, therefore, the serpent is condemned to crawl. As he is pronounced to be “cursed above (or rather, among) all cattle”—that is, the tame animals subjected to man’s service—and also “among all beasts of the field”—that is, the wild animals, but a term not applicable to reptiles—it has been supposed that the serpent was originally erect and beautiful, and that Adam had even tamed serpents, and had them in his household. But such a transformation belongs to the region of fable, and the meaning is that henceforward the serpent’s crawling motion is to be to it a mark of disgrace, and to Satan a sign of meanness and contempt. He won the victory over our guileless first parents, and still he winds in and out among men, ever bringing degradation with him, and ever sinking with his victims into deeper abysses of shame and infamy. Yet, even so, perpetually he suffers defeat, and has, secondly, to “lick the dust,” because his mean devices lead, as in this place, only to the manifestation of God’s glory. In the Paradise Lost Milton has made Satan a hero, though fallen; really he is a despicable and mean-spirited foe, whose strength lies in man’s moral feebleness. Finally, there is perpetual enmity between the serpent and man. The adder in the path bites man’s heel, and is crushed beneath his tramp. It has been noticed that in spite of the beauty and gracefulness of many of the species, man’s loathing of them is innate; while in hot countries they are his great enemy, the deaths in India, for instance, from snake-bites being many times more than those caused by the carnivora. Her seed . . . shall bruise thy head.—We have here the sum of the whole matter, and the rest of the Bible does but explain the nature of this struggle, the persons who wage it, and the manner and consequences of the victory. Here, too, we learn the end and purpose for which the narrative is cast in its present form. It pictures to us man in a close and loving relation, not to an abstract deity, but to a personal and covenant Jehovah. This Being with tender care plants for him a garden, gathers into it whatever is most rare and beautiful in vegetation, and, having given it to him for his home, even deigns at eventide to walk with him there.

Verse 14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent] The tempter is not asked why he deceived the woman; he cannot roll the blame on any other; self-tempted he fell, and it is natural for him, such is his enmity, to deceive and destroy all he can. His fault admits of no excuse, and therefore God begins to pronounce sentence on him first. And here we must consider a twofold sentence, one on Satan and the other on the agent he employed. The nachash, whom I suppose to have been at the head of all the inferior animals, and in a sort of society and intimacy with man, is to be greatly degraded, entirely banished from human society, and deprived of the gift of speech. Cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field - thou shalt be considered the most contemptible of animals; upon thy belly shalt thou go-thou shalt no longer walk erect, but mark the ground equally with thy hands and feet; and dust shalt thou eat-though formerly possessed of the faculty to distinguish, choose, and cleanse thy food, thou shalt feed henceforth like the most stupid and abject quadruped, all the days of thy life-through all the innumerable generations of thy species. God saw meet to manifest his displeasure against the agent employed in this melancholy business; and perhaps this is founded on the part which the intelligent and subtle nachash took in the seduction of our first parents. We see that he was capable of it, and have some reason to believe that he became a willing instrument.

14–19. The Sentence 14. cursed art thou] The word “cursed” is only used in addressing the serpent, as the originator of the temptation, and in reference to “the ground” as the sphere of man’s penalty (Genesis 3:17). Jehovah does not pronounce a curse either upon the man or upon the woman. above] Better, as R.V. marg., from among. Taken from among the other animals, the domestic cattle and the wild beasts, the serpent alone receives the curse. So LXX ἀ ?ðü, Vulg. “inter.” An objection to the rendering “above” is, that it would imply a curse of some sort upon all animals, and a special one upon the serpent. upon thy belly, &c.] It appears from this sentence that the story considered the serpent to have been originally different in appearance and mode of progression. Its crawling movement on the ground and the apparent necessity for its swallowing dust are regarded as the results of the curse pronounced in the garden. Prostrate, no longer erect, and feeding on the dust which man shakes off from his foot, the serpent-race typified the insidious character of the power of evil, to which the upright walk of man was the typical contrast. all the days of thy life] Not the individual serpent, but the whole serpent-race. These words, together with the details of the curse, conclusively shew that Jehovah is addressing an animal, and not the spirit of evil.

14. The Lord God said — Now follows the threefold judgment, pronounced first upon the serpent, next upon the woman, (Genesis 3:16,) and finally upon man, (17-19.) The malediction against the serpent