Genesis 3:14

And the Lord God brought the three unto judgment; and He said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou of all the cattle, and of all the beasts of the field: upon thy belly thou shalt go, and thy feet shall be cut off, and thy skin thou shalt cast away once in seven years; and the poison of death shall be in thy mouth, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

FROM AMONG ALL CATTLE, AND FROM AMONG ALL BEASTS OF THE FIELD. From a study of this verse, Rabbi Yehoshua the son of Chananya derived the fact that a serpent gives birth once in seven years; this they investigated and found to be so. For the Midrashic interpretations of Scripture and their allusions are all traditional, and they found in them profound secrets on procreation and all matters, as I mentioned in my introduction.

ארור אתה מכל. The serpent was condemned henceforth to attain its needs as well as its desires only through experiencing more pain and greater lack of pleasure than all the other creatures. Compare Kidushin 82 ראית חיה ועוף שהם בני אומנות והם מתפרנסים שלא בצער, “Did you ever see a beast or bird practicing a vocation, and yet they find their livelihood without pain?” [the scholar makes the point that our parnassah lies in the hands of G’d and is not due to our professional level. Ed.] G’d’s curse is explained in detail by the words על גחונך תלך, “you will have to crawl on your belly.” This means that the serpent will find its sustenance only laboriously, experiencing frustration in doing so. Our sages (Berachot 58) mention how many laborious stages the kernel of wheat had to undergo until Adam finally was able to eat the bread that he made out of it.

ועפר תאכל, you will not enjoy the food (or other earthly pleasures) previously enjoyable. The Talmud Sotah 49 describes something similar happening to the Jewish people as a whole after the destruction of the Temple, saying: הטהרה נטלה את הטעם ואת הריח, והמעשרות נטלו את שומן הדגן, [the subject being the negative fallout for the entire nation of the destruction of the Temple, Ed.] “previously pleasant tasting and fragrant foods no longer tasted as well with the exception of food which needed to be consumed in a state of ritual purity, and the tithes now assumed the richness of cereals.”

ויאמר כי עשית זאת, he did not have an answer to this, no excuse whatsoever. Adam and Chavah, though their excuse was indeed feeble, at least had some sort of an excuse, whereas the serpent had no excuse whatsoever. This is why G’d immediately proceeded to curse the serpent, without even waiting if the serpent would try and come up with an excuse. This is what Solomon had in mind when he said in Kohelet 10,11: ואין יתרון לבעל הלשון, “a slanderer (the serpent) has nothing going for him at all (having bitten without provocation).” (compare Taanit 8) Our sages (Sanhedrin 29) say that the serpent did have an answer ready but that G’d did not give it a chance to use it seeing it had initiated this seduction. (The Talmud, quoting one of the possible excuses of the serpent, cites the well known phrase: “if the words of the student are at variance with those of the teacher, whose words does one have to heed?” Whatever excuse the serpent could have used, it had no answer to the accusation why it had engaged in seduction.)