Question
Answer!
How will Serpents Eat Dust?
By Nab. B, July 29, 2022
Question:
What is the difference between Genesis 3:14 and Isaiah 65:25 about the serpent eating dust?
Answer:
Genesis 3:14 was a curse spoken against Satan and not against the serpent! Many had assumed that God was cursing the animal by making it perhaps without legs and eating dust which is a very unusual interpretation!
God has a principle that won't change which Jesus emphasized, “For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38). Applying this to Satan, God justifiably assigned to him the lower features of the serpent he used (the belly crawling and eating of dust) in a spiritual manner. No, Satan did not become a real snake! The curse was a figure of speech.
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent...upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." (Genesis 3:14)
What was the curse?
Satan was lowered to the same status as that of the serpent! How you might ask? Since Satan used a serpent, God attached some of its physical aspects to him, but in non-physical way. Here's how:
Satan is cursed more than any creature.
Satan is lowered, debased, and considered unclean which is what 'crawling on the belly' means. (See Psa 44:25; Lev 11:31)
Satan will experience loss and defeat which is what the 'eating of dust' means. (See Mic 7:17; Psa 72:9; 44:25 Isa 49:23)
Serpents in Nature
Real serpents were created marvellously from the beginning to crawl on their belly. They feed on smaller creatures but sometimes, they may eat or lick dust with their forked tongues for smelling purposes using special extrasensory glands located in their mouths. Dust isn’t their food but it gets eaten whenever they clean their tongues after use!
This rules out the silly idea that serpents' physiology has changed after God cursed them!
What About Isaiah 65:25?
Isaiah 65:1 prophetically points to the spiritual conditions that will in the new Gentile Church. It promises that humans who previously acted like predators will be a thing of the past among true believers. Symbolically, it says that a human-like wolf will only eat grass, and a human-like serpent will only eat dust and losing any predatory behaviour!
Isaiah's passage is not exactly about animals, but rather about human personalities. It uses the analogy of serpents that inadvertently eat dust but still hunt for prey will reverse course. Their non-food, dust, will be their main diet. These figurative and poetic images pointed to God's new creation under Jesus Christ. (See Eph 4:20-24).
There seems to be no conflict between Genesis 3:14 and Isaiah 65:25.The difference is subtle. In both accounts, it is the personalities behind the serpents that mattered. In Genesis, it was Satan who was demoted to a spiritual status as that of a serpent. In Isaiah, it’s the believer who is promoted to a new spiritual nature in Christ.