And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.’”—Genesis 3:14, 15, NW; Leeser; Zunz.

GOD’S ANOINTED ONE FORETOLD

18. What new thing was here announced, with what features about it?

¹⁸ Here Jehovah God formed a new purpose, and he announced it. The lying Satan the Devil had risen up, and it now became God’s purpose to raise up an Anointed One, a Ma·shiʹahh (Messiah) according to Adam’s language. (Daniel 9:25) God spoke of this Anointed One, this Messiah, as the “seed” of “the woman.” God would put enmity between this Anointed One and Satan the Devil, now symbolized by the serpent. This enmity would also extend itself to being between the Anointed One and the “seed” of the Great Serpent.

19. (a) In what conflict was this “enmity” to result? (b) Why would the Anointed One of Jehovah’s purpose have to be heavenly?

¹⁹ The enmity foretold was to result in a battle that would have painful effects, but it would end with victory for the “seed” of “the woman.” Like a snake that strikes at the heel of the leg (Genesis 49:17), the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, would cause a heel wound to the woman’s “seed.” This heel wound would not prove fatal. It would be healed, to enable the woman’s “seed” to bruise the Great Serpent in the head fatally. Thus the Great Serpent would perish, and his “seed” with him. A vital thing to be noted about this conflict is this: For the woman’s “seed” to bruise and crush the head of the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, the woman’s “seed” would have to be a heavenly spirit person, not a mere human son of a woman on earth. Why so? Because the Great Serpent is a superhuman spirit person, a rebellious heavenly son of God. A mere human “seed” of an earthly woman would not be powerful enough to destroy the invisible Satan the Devil in the spirit realm. So the Anointed One of Jehovah’s purpose must be a heavenly Messiah.

20. Who, then, is the “woman” of Genesis 3:15?

²⁰ Well, then, how about the “woman” whose “seed” the Anointed One or Messiah is? She, too, must be heavenly. Just as the serpent that was sentenced to being crushed in the head was not that literal serpent that had been used to deceive Eve, so the “woman” of Jehovah’s prophecy in Genesis 3:15 was not a literal woman on earth. Eve was a personal transgressor against God’s law and was an enticer of her husband Adam into transgression. So she herself was not worthy of being the personal mother of the promised “seed.” The “woman” of God’s prophecy must be a symbolic woman. It is just as when Jehovah God speaks of his chosen people as being his wife, his woman, saying to them: “Return, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am become your husband.” (Jeremiah 3:14; 31:31, Leeser [Jer 31:32, NW]) In a like manner God’s heavenly organization of holy angels is as a wife to Jehovah God, and she is the heavenly mother of the “seed.” She is “the woman.” It is between this “woman” and the Serpent that God puts enmity.