I will put enmity between you and the woman: enmity means “hostility, hatred, to be enemies.” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy says “I will make you and the woman to be enemies.” In languages that do not use the term “enemies” in the sense of “enemies of each other,” it will be necessary to say something like “You will be the woman’s enemy, and the woman will be your enemy.” It may also be possible to use other verbs to express the idea of enmity; for example, “You and the woman will hate each other and be against each other.”

And between your [the snake’s] seed and her seed: seed refers to descendants, offspring. This hostility is not just between the snake and the woman in the garden, but applies to all snakes and all human beings not yet born. Accordingly Good News Translation makes this clear with “will always be enemies.” Seed in both occurrences is singular grammatically in Hebrew. However, in both cases the sense is collective. In those languages that have a collective term for descendants, translators are advised to use the collective term. If there is no collective, a plural form must be used; for example, one translation has “All her descendants and all your descendants will always be bad friends.”

Her seed has inspired a long history of interpretation. The expression has been taken to refer to the Jewish community under the reign of the Messiah, to Christ, to Mary the mother of Jesus, to victory over the devil, and so forth.

He shall bruise your head: he translates the Hebrew third person singular masculine pronoun. However, the reference is to the seed of the woman, that is, “her descendants,” which is also masculine singular in Hebrew. Good News Translation has “Her offspring.” Some translations keep the singular pronoun he, some use a collective term such as “offspring,” while others use a plural such as “they” or “her descendants.” Translators are advised to use a pronoun or other term that is in accord with the term chosen to translate seed.

The Latin Vulgate translated the Hebrew masculine pronoun here by a pronoun meaning “she,” and so the reference has been traditionally to Mary [many other early Catholic Bibles, including the English Douay-Rheims follow this reading]. Consequently this verse has been taken to be the earliest hint of the gospel and the promise of Christ’s victory over Satan. There are, however, two important points in the text that should warn the translator to avoid this interpretation:
(1) The text speaks of the descendants of both the snake and the woman. Their meanings should both be kept parallel.
(2) The context is that of a curse or punishment, and there is no suggestion of a promise or prophecy in it.

Bruise your head … bruise his heel: the word bruise refers to causing a surface injury in which the skin or flesh is not broken, usually when struck by a blunt instrument. This sense is hardly appropriate for the second clause, where it is applied to the snake attacking the person. Some translations use the same verb for both occurrences; for example, “They shall strike … and you shall strike” (Moffatt, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible). Good News Translation has terms that are more natural in English, “crush” and “bite,” and this is recommended as a model for translators to follow. Note that Good News Translation second edition, used in this Handbook, says “her offspring’s heel” and places “their” in the footnote. This contrasts with Good News Translation first edition, which places “their” in the text and “his” in the footnote.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .