Who do we blame for the temptation of humankind that plunged us into sin, death, and misery? In Genesis 3, Moses introduces us to “the serpent.” This figure will carry great significance in the biblical narrative to follow. From ancient times, commentators and readers have basically identified the serpent with Satan. I agree that the serpent and Satan have an integral connection. But the narrative of Genesis 3 does not say anything directly about Satan or any fallen angel. Moses describes the serpent in Genesis 3 as a living creature, an animal. We’ll discuss how the connection between the serpent and Satan developed over the course of the Bible and history. First, let’s look at the serpent strictly within the lens of Genesis.
Who Was the Serpent?
What does Moses tell us about the serpent? Not much. He introduces the serpent with few words. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1). We can learn a good bit from this sparse introduction. Moses calls the serpent “a beast of the field.” So the serpent did not come from heaven, but earth. The creation of the animals followed a certain hierarchy, from fish to birds to land animals to humankind. So the serpent would have belonged to the highest class of the animals, “the beasts of the field.”
In the immediate context of the serpent’s introduction, Moses recounted the creation of land animals and the intention of searching out “a helper suitable for Adam” (Gen. 2:18). God brought the animals He had created, excepting fish, to Adam. He intended to see what Adam would name them. At the same time, He also wanted to determine if any animal could serve as Adam’s partner in the dominion of creation. The “building” of the woman in Genesis 2 follows the failed search to find Adam a counterpart among the animals. This means Adam had assessed and named the serpent before the creation of woman. God and Adam evaluated the serpent as a potential partner, then. And they would have found the serpent inadequate to that task.
The Serpent “More Crafty”
So the second thing we learn concerning the serpent in Genesis 3 proves quite important. Moses tells us that, of all the higher animals—the beasts of the field—the serpent was most “crafty.” The word translated “crafty” (עָרוּם, arūm) here has mixed connotations. When used negatively, it refers to a knack for scheming and manipulation (i.e., cunning or crafty). But when used positively, arūm can mean prudent or shrewd. Solomon uses the word positively in the Proverbs quite often, usually in contrast to “naive” or “simple-minded.” A representative example: “The prudent [עָרוּם, arūm] sees the evil and hides himself, but the naive go on, and are punished for it” (Prov. 22:3; cf. 27:12). The contrast here seems the same as the contrast in Genesis 3. Eve (or should we call her “naive”…) does not see the danger the serpent clearly sees and even intends. The serpent uses his cleverness here to deceive and to kill rather than to serve and preserve the truth, but clearly the serpent surpassed all other living creatures except Adam in shrewdness.
The word translated “crafty” in Genesis 3:1 also connects to the word “naked” in Genesis 2:25. In unpointed Hebrew (i.e., without the vowel markings), the words are spelled the same. Moses almost certainly intended a connection between “crafty” and “naked,” but what did he intend by that connection? On a purely superficial level, perhaps that the serpent had a greater similarity to Adam and Eve in being free of hair. Unlike the other beasts of the field, the serpent had a certain nakedness akin to humanity. Reptiles even today have a similarly “naked” appearance compared to other hairy or feathered beasts of the field. But I think too that Moses intended to point to a certain “shamelessness” of the serpent, a sly contrast to the shame-free condition of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were naked and shame-free. The serpent was naked and shameless—in other words both bold and cunning, free from scruples.
So Moses gave us quite a bit of information in his one-verse introduction to the serpent. We can determine at least the following: The serpent was a living creature, a beast of the field, not Satan or an angel per se. The serpent had many similarities to Adam, more than the other beasts of the field. The serpent was more naked, like Adam and Eve, but also more shrewd than any other beast of the field. Indeed, when God and Adam looked among the animals to determine if one could potentially partner with Adam, the serpent likely would have ended up on the shortlist of options. It actually makes a lot of sense to think that the serpent, being most cunning of all the beasts and most like Adam at least for that reason, would have come up as first runner-up to partner with Adam. Already noting a parallel here with Satan? Good!
What Did the Serpent Have Against Adam and Eve?
And that fact—the serpent’s status as first runner-up to Eve as co-regent of creation—starts to shed light on the motivation for the serpent’s collaboration with Satan in the temptation of humankind. In many ways, the serpent’s relationship to Eve parallels Satan’s relationship to Adam. The serpent was to the woman in the cultivated earth (the “field”) what Satan was to Adam in the created cosmos—first runner-up. As I discussed in the last article of this series, “Why Did Satan Fall?”, Satan was tempted by the test of a change of his circumstances, namely, when God passed over him for Adam (a perceived inferior) as ruler of the cosmos. In a similar fashion, God and Adam “passed over” the serpent in the creation of Eve, also a perceived inferior.
Consider that the serpent likely felt exactly what Satan felt. Up until the completely unexpected creation of the woman, the serpent likely considered himself the earthly pinnacle of the living creatures under Adam. And, as proved in the temptation, Eve did not in fact possess the equal shrewdness of the serpent. The serpent may very well have looked at Eve as an unworthy newcomer who had stolen a position that he rightly deserved. And he decided, like Satan, to prove his case through a test/temptation of his own.
So, the spirit of the serpent and the spirit of Satan became uniformly aligned in resentment, bitterness, and jealousy. Which explains why they became basically unified, even in identity, in the biblical narrative. Eve’s naivety and vulnerability made her a fitting target for spiritual attack already. But imagine the serpent’s twisted glee in getting to “put her in her place” and show both God and man what a huge mistake they had made. They had obviously chosen the wrong “helper suitable.”
The Serpent and Satan
When you consider it in this way, it makes sense why the serpent and Satan would become identified together later in the Scriptures. We see this identity most explicitly in Revelation, where John says, “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev. 12:9; cp. 20:2). Some commentators think Satan may have come to Eve in the form of a serpent. It seems more likely Satan possessed the serpent, so that the serpent became the embodiment of Satan’s spiritual impulse to power. Their goals certainly merged in extreme anti-humanism. And it makes little sense that God would humble literal serpents, by having them crawl on their bellies (Gen. 3:14), if the actual creature played no conscious or voluntary part in the temptation.
The serpent and Satan then unified in spirit, and precisely because they both gave in to selfish power and pride in the face of a divine test. And every living creature that exhibits that same spirit, of resentment and jealousy and a will to domination, claims the satanic serpent as a parent and exemplar. A wholly wicked spirit in a body wholly shaped to the evil of lies and killing. Two things then prove necessary for “the satanic serpent” to form. First, a material form capable of great evil. Second, this form being ruled by a spirit wholly turned to self-service. The principle of the serpent is nothing more than selfish power.
“The Seed of the Serpent”
This makes sense also of the biblical label, “seed of the serpent,” which Moses first introduces in Genesis 3:15. What exactly does Moses mean by this? I need to explain first that I do not believe Moses thought the serpent or the devil would lay carnally with human females and produce fleshly half-demon children. As Jesus makes clear, angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matt. 22:29; cp. Mk. 12:25). Spirits do in fact reproduce themselves, but not according to the flesh. They do not have flesh, and they do not create it. Instead, spirits reproduce after their kind, similarly to plants with seeds. Like a virus that commandeers the replication capacity of healthy cells, spirits need others to make the flesh they will commandeer for evil purposes.
Moses had already used the word “seed” in Genesis (1:11–12), in talking about vegetative reproduction. He easily could have said “the sons of the serpent” and “the sons of the woman,” but he chose instead to speak of spiritual children in terms of “seed” in this context. The reproduction he had in mind worked according to the spiritual principle of seeds. Seed, when received into an accepting environment, produces fruit bearing seed according to its kind. This image fits spiritual forms of reproduction very well, since a spiritual “word” or “law,” when accepted or believed and obeyed, bears the fruit of works that reproduce the same spiritual law in any others who accept it. Thus anger begets anger, pride begets pride, lust begets lust, etc. So both the spiritual principle or law, and those who reproduce it in the fruit of bodily works, could be called “seed.”
The Seed Principle
In many places, Jesus adopts these concepts in his parables involving “seed.” For instance, in Matthew 13:37–39, Jesus explains the parable of the tares: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.” So here, the seed sown represents people in obedience to a spiritual principle—either of the kingdom of God or of the devil. Jesus also makes the connection between “seed” and a spiritual law when he explains the parable of the sower: “Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11). Jesus’ use of “seed” helps us to understand better how biblical authors employ the term in Genesis and beyond.
In Moses’ narrative, the spirit that had possessed the serpent would possess others as well. They would prove themselves “seed” of that same spirit in their resentment, jealousy, pride, and impulse to selfish power. The wicked and unclean spirit cannot reproduce itself without being invited in like seed into a willing recipient who then obeys that principle, producing the works of that principle that then tempt self and others further and proliferate the seed of that sin abroad.
In Genesis 3, God declares that He Himself will maintain the separation and conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. This conflict must be viewed as between lines of spiritual reproduction rather than strictly between fleshly lines. In the Old Testament particularly, God externalizes these spiritual principles for the sake of our education and enlightenment. But we must understand that even “seed of Abraham” would eventually mean “those who exhibit the same faith and obedience of Abraham” more than it meant the literal, biological children of Abraham (Jn. 8:39; Rom. 9:7; 1 Pet. 3:6). “Seed” then has a far-reaching use as a metaphor of spiritual reproduction.
Cain vs. Abel
Returning to Genesis, does Moses mention the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 and the conflict and enmity God will certainly place between these spiritual lines, and then abandon that thread altogether in his narrative? No. In fact, this conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman becomes one of the central metanarratives of the Torah and even the rest of the Bible.
Notice that the story of Cain and Abel closely parallels the realities of Satan vs. Adam and the Serpent vs. Woman. Cain offers a sacrifice, and God rejects it, while accepting the sacrifice of Abel (the younger, “lesser” brother). God has declared Cain (the first-born “acquired” one) first runner-up to his unnecessary brother. Abel’s name most literally means “breath” and features rather prominently in the book of Ecclesiastes (where 1:2 literally says: “‘Abel of Abels,’ says the Preacher. ‘Abel of Abels. All is Abel.’”). Cain, who clearly considered himself the superior one (likely in agreement with his parents at least at first), responds to this test of circumstances quite badly (Gen. 4:5). But God comes to Cain, pleading with him in these words: “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:6–7).
Moses had already used some almost identical phrasing in Genesis 3:16 in God’s judgment of Eve, “Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” In other words, Cain’s sin—that spirit of resentment and jealousy and selfish pride—waits at the threshold of his unmet expectations to take control of the direction of his life, like an over-reaching partner desiring oneness on its own terms. Cunning sin sows its seed in the place and time most likely to receive it, so it can produce its evil seed-bearing fruit and continue the cycle. Cain must reject that spirit of sin and continue to operate in the righteousness of God (something Adam failed to do with the woman—Gen. 3:17).
In the moment, however, Cain gave over to that unrighteous spirit (inclining his ear and the control of his body to the unrighteousness of an over-reaching one-flesh partner). He then conceived and bore sin. In that moment, he became the seed of the serpent bearing fruit that bore seed according to its kind. He proved himself stronger than Abel in a sense, and in that, he nourished his resentment that God got it wrong. He festered in a bitter grief that knew no repentance (Gen. 4:13–14; cf. Heb. 12:15–16).
But, if Moses characterizes Cain as the first human seed of the serpent (and I think that clear), how could that be? Was not Cain born of the woman? Didn’t Cain, according to the text, proceed biologically from Adam and Eve (Gen. 4:1)? But the Apostle John identifies Cain’s spiritual origin: “of the evil one” (1 Jn. 3:12). He was a bad seed. Because Cain, like the serpent and Satan before him, partnered with the wicked spirit of sin, he became born not to life but to death, a liar and a murderer like his father, the Devil.
We should remember this. It will not be the last time the biological seed of a people of righteousness prove themselves to be the spiritual seed of the enemy. In fact, the devil has no access to any flesh he can make. All of the enemy’s flesh is captured—stolen.
Conclusion
For the rest of the Bible, God continues to reveal the seed of the serpent through testing and command. That same spirit of selfish power and rebellious resentment continues to show up. Once you recognize what it looks like, it clarifies so much of the substance of the conflicts to follow. Cain and Abel, Lamech and Enoch, Lamech II and Noah, the garden of God and the tower of Babel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, the brothers against Joseph, Pharaoh against Moses, Saul against David, and on and on). One of the more direct examples of this conflict occurs in the climax of the narrative with Jesus’ first advent: the religious leaders vs. Jesus.
In the most direct terms, Jesus was the seed of the woman. Indeed, no man conceived him. Even literally, Jesus proceeded from the woman alone. But in a spiritual sense, Jesus represented the vulnerability, submission, and self-sacrifice inherent in the woman’s righteous humility on the earth. The way of Jesus directly contradicted the way of power, which is the way of Satan bearing the seed of the serpent.
Notice the parallels in the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The religious leaders feared losing their place and their position (Jn. 11:48) to this nobody from Nazareth (Mt. 13:55; Jn. 1:46). They first denied the truth, like their father the devil, then gave in to murder, also like their father (Jn. 8:44–47). All of this stemmed from jealousy, resentment, and the selfish impulse to power. Even Pilate recognized this: “he knew that because of envy they had handed Him over” (Matt. 27:18; cf. Mk. 15:10).
The Pharisees, like Cain, Ishmael, Esau, King Saul, and all the rest, had been displaced from what seemed like a rightful superior position. And they refused to give it up. Instead, in resentment and bitterness, they used trickery or violence to try to remove their opposition. In some ways, the whole story of the Bible culminates with the final victory of the way of peace against the way of power—the final victory of the seed of the woman, the children of God, against the seed of the serpent, the children of the Devil.
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In the next article, we’ll continue to trace the line of the seed of the serpent in Cain and beyond. And we’ll address the question of the Nephilim along the way.