The Serpent’s Curse: A Dive into Genesis 3:14

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life. – Genesis 3:14

This verse has me puzzling over one thing. When we read about the snake in the garden, everyone assumes the snake just looks like a snake, right? But what if it wasn’t?

Hear me out here. God is cursing the snake. It’d be very clear that God is mad at all three of them. With Adam, he must toil and work hard for food and put up with Eve’s grievances. With Eve, she cops the pain of childbirth. With both, they can no longer live forever, they must die eventually. And all they did was disobey him.

Can you imagine how much harder God’s wrath would be on the snake who led them astray in regard to God’s rule? God’s wrath would have been immense. So, he’s not going to just punish a snake by telling him that the only way he can move around from now on is how the snake has already been moving around.

That would be like telling a dog that wags his tail to communicate his mood that he can only communicate with his tail to indicate his mood from now on. Do you see the problem I have with this? It’s not really much of a punishment if nothing actually changes.

The snake would be like: Well, damn, and here I was hoping to grow legs maybe a century down the track. I guess I screwed that up!

God’s wrath on the snake must have been some serious body changes, but from what? And keeping in mind, God has that power.! After all, He created the universe, so making some simple changes to one creature, even a rather evil one, wouldn’t be that hard.

Think about all those parents out there today that often threaten their children with “I brought you into this world, I can take you out.” Admittedly, we all hope and pray those are empty threats, but God really does have that power, and through the millennia, he has used that power in one way or another as a rather painful lesson to humankind.

The flood during Noah’s time is just one of the more extreme examples of this.

So changing the body shape of a snake would be nothing for him, but from what?

Revelations 12:9 reads: ⁹ And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 

We already know that the snake in Eden was Satan working on leading Adam and Eve astray. So, what’s to say that what the snake may have appeared as, before God’s wrath, was the same dragon that’s mentioned in Revelations?

I haven’t quite worked out how, between Genesis and Revelations the snake went back to being a dragon. Heck, I don’t claim to know everything… or even anything. These are just my own thoughts diving down a curious rabbit hole after a snake that was basically cursed to be… well… a snake.

It could be that by God cursing the snake to be a snake, He drove Satan out of that body, but then by Revelations, he then either becomes the dragon or that’s when Revelations becomes more symbolic which is what many believe it to be.

Okay. So, was the snake in Eden also symbolic? It probably would have to be considering a snake would have a heck of a time communicating with that tongue, but again, body change. Dragon head to snake head. Intelligent brain to something the size of a… ok, I’m not going to knock the intelligence of a snake. It’s clear that the tiny brain they have, the size itself depending on the size of the snake, is still well enough equipped for snakes to have interesting cognitive abilities going by what some snake obsessed researchers have discovered.

The snake COULD have been symbolic. In modern day slang terms. Someone is called a snake if they are deceitful, untrustworthy or manipulative, and for all I know, this dates back to bible times, as far back as creation. COULD it have been Satan himself that spoke AS himself in Garden of Eden, no I guess not as this would then become the catch 22 and the bible would definitely have been clear about this, but instead it mentions a snake manipulating them into disobeying.

For an overthinker like me, this one simple verse does my head in. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this verse.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog, please like and/or comment below.