Cursed and Dusty Snake || Punishable by God || Week 1

Welcome to our brand-new series called “Punishable by God.” We are moving on to Genesis 3 to discuss the punishments and consequences that God dishes out to the serpent, Eve, and Adam. We will look at some key concepts in Genesis 3:14-19 and see how they resonate throughout the Biblical story. This series will be a short 3-week one, and I hope you’re excited about it! 

Introducing Satan

This week, we will look at the punishment and consequences given to the serpent. You might know the serpent under the common name “Satan” or “the devil.” Genesis 3:1 has some helpful descriptors of who this character is. First, we learn about Satan’s role. Satan tempts us to give in to a wrong way of living and give up on God’s way of life. Satan was an angel that got caught up in pride. They rebelled against God, and then God cast them out of heaven. Secondly, God created Satan with limitations. To understand this, we must look at the book of Job and Satan’s conversations with God. It’s Job 1:12 and Job 2:16, and here’s what it says: 

1:12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

2:6 “All right, do with him as you please,” the Lord said to Satan. “But spare his life.”

First, we see that God permits Satan to attack Job cruelly. It reminds us that even though God loves us, believing and obeying him isn’t enough to prevent us from life’s troubles. God wants us to stay faithful to him in times of trouble and share what that faith looks like with the world. 

Second, Satan had a deep understanding as to why many people trusted God. Satan believed that Job only did it because God had given him a lot. Satan believed that many believers only followed God when everything went well or tried to get what they wanted. Trouble destroys a believer’s faith, but trouble can also strengthen faith by causing us to dig deeper into our relationship with God to withstand the storms of life. 

Third, God was fully aware of Satan’s attempts to bring suffering and difficulty to believers. There may be difficulties that happen to us that we may never understand. Still, God is never surprised by them and always responds with compassion. 

Fourth, Satan can’t persuade God to change his plans. Satan couldn’t convince God to go against his character. The fact of the matter is that God is good all the time. God followed Satan’s plan for Job because God knew how the story would end. The story of Job’s suffering shows a test for Job, Satan, and the readers – but not for God.

Fifth, Satan had to get God’s permission to inflict pain upon Job. God limits Satan not to destroy Job. Satan could do what we wanted as long as Job wouldn’t die. 

This explanation is just scratching the surface of the dynamics between Satan and God. Still, it paints a good context for us as we discuss the consequences that God gives Satan after the “Garden incident.” Let’s dive into that now!

Here is what God had to say to the snake: 

14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. 

15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

We will look at three things here: what “dust” represents, the truth that gets told, and eternal life. Let’s dive into it. 

Eat Dust

Let’s focus on verse 14! We begin by discussing how the snake is now the most cursed animal. Check out what Deuteronomy 28:15 says: 

15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you.” 

This comparison seems complicated because we went from a cursed snake to a cursed person. Before we get into the thick of it, let’s talk about the book of Deuteronomy is about and gain the context of this verse. 

The book of Deuteronomy reminds the Israelites about what God had done for them and encourages them to rededicate their lives to God. We see many reminders of blessings that come from following God’s instructions. 

Deuteronomy 28 is a part of Moses’ second address to the Israelite nation about how to live godly. Moses talks about the Ten Commandments, how to love God properly, the laws for proper worship, the laws for ruling the nation, the laws for human relationships, and the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Deuteronomy 28 is about that last part; the consequences of obedience and disobedience. 

Verses 1 thru 14 are about the blessings of obedience. The blessings include a bountiful harvest, many descendants of families and animals, and “prosperity” of what they say and do (28:6). (Note: I couldn’t think of another word to describe the blessing of 28:6. I try not to use the word “prosperity” in these contexts, but it was the best I could think of.) 

Verses 15 thru 68 are about the curses of disobedience. The curses include confusion, frustration, diseases, heat, drought, blight, mildew, untillable fields, easy defeat against their enemies, madness, blindness, panic, depression, oppression, and many more. The curses I listed are in 14 of the 53 verses in this section. These curses list anything that causes mild and severe discomfort. 

These curses warned of what would happen if the Israelites refused to stay in a relationship with God. If they choose not to stay, they choose to take on the consequences of the curses. This result feels like a hard pill to swallow. Yet, with all parts of life, choices will always have consequences. We make many decisions every day in our lives, both good and bad. Good decisions have their consequences, just like bad decisions do. We may not know the consequences before making decisions, but we assume the consequences when we decide. God gave us free will to make, live with, and learn from these decisions. 

God doesn’t force us into a relationship with these curses. It’s instead giving us an understanding of what life could look like without a relationship with God. God operates out of love. If God’s love is the source of good, then separating ourselves from that love would bring the opposite of good. We learned in the book of Job that Satan’s primary goal is to cause chaos and calamity. We see Satan do that with Eve as well. We see that Eve and Adam’s decision leads to the curse of being removed from the Garden of Eden and the natural consequences that come with it. God still cared for Adam and Eve by providing clothes for them, but they still had to live with the consequences of their actions. God cares for us with all the good and bad decisions we’ve made and will make in our lives and walks with us in all th consequences of those decisions. It’s up to us to ensure our decision aligns with God’s plan. 

Let’s move on to talk about the fact that the snake will live on and eat the dust of the earth. We’re going to look at this from Isaiah 65:25. 

25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. But the snakes will eat dust. In those days no one will be hurt or destroyed on my holy mountain. I, the Lord, have spoken. 

As we did before, let’s gain the context of what the book of Isaiah is and what the context of this verse represents. 

The book of Isaiah calls the nation of Judah back to God and tells of God’s salvation through the Messiah. Isaiah contains prose (straightforward storytelling) and poetry. It also uses personification to give divine beings or inanimate objects personal qualities. Isaiah includes predictions that simultaneously foretell a soon-to-occur event and a distant future event.

Isaiah 65 comes from Isaiah giving the people of Judah words of comfort. Isaiah talks about Israel’s release from captivity, the future Redeemer, and the future Kingdom. 

Isaiah 65 is about judgment and final salvation. God talks about how the people of Judah directly disobeyed the law when they worshiped idols, consulted the dead, and ate forbidden food. Yet, God won’t destroy them all. There will still be a remnant of the Israelites. Verses 17 thru 25 show an image of what the new heaven and earth will look like. It’s an eternal place where safety, plenty, and peace are available. The peaceful descriptions we see in 65:25 show us that animals will no longer fear predators. 

The reference mentioning the snakes eating dust shows us the final destruction of all evil. It’s God’s punishment coming to fruition. This passage shows us what the future reign of Jesus will be like on earth when sin is gone. The final blow to the head of the snake happens, and the snake will have no choice but to spend the rest of eternity on the ground. With Satan defeated, eternal life in this place is the greatest reward for all that believe in him.

We see again the defeat of the snake leading to peace and freedom. The animals eat together. There’s no fear. There’s no worry. There’s no stress. Humanity can co-exist and live in harmony. God even says here that no one will be hurt or destroyed on God’s holy mountain as a decree. Genesis 3 spoke of this same thing happening.

I’m going to wrap this up here. I spent much more time introducing the Satan character than planned, and we still have two more sections to cover. This week gave us a great introduction to Satan and the meaning behind the curses and the dust. Next week, we will look deeper at Genesis 3:15 and the story of Eve’s future child crushing the head of the snake. Until then, stay blessed!