Misinterpretations of Genesis 3:15 often treat it merely as a literal etiology explaining human-snake antagonism, ignoring its messianic prophecy, or view 'her seed' as collective humanity without pinpointing Christ, reducing the divine promise to generic moral struggle; others impose later doctrines like Marianism by emphasizing the woman excessively, or dismiss the spiritual enmity as irrelevant to the immediate Edenic context of judgment on deception and sin.
Genesis 3:15
King James Version (1769)
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Genesis 3:15 reveals God's protoevangelium, the first gospel promise amid the curse on the serpent after humanity's fall, establishing enmity between the serpent (Satan) and the woman, and between their seeds, with the woman's seed ultimately crushing the serpent's head—a decisive victory foreshadowing Christ's triumph over sin and death—while the serpent bruises the heel, alluding to the temporary suffering of the cross.