Seed and Seeds
Canon Liddon., Professor Gardiner. Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed… The singular form denotes Christ's individuality, while its collective force suggests the representative character of His human nature. (Canon Liddon.)The Paradisiacal promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head was from the first understood of some deliverer. It was so understood when Cain was named as the expected restorer (Genesis 4:1); so again when Noah was expected to be one that "shall comfort us" (Genesis 5:29). During the long ages that followed, this promise must have been the stay of every devout and God-fearing soul. It survived the terrible judgment of the flood; it passed into the expectation of the better part of every nation. It was surely not wanting in the family of Shem, nor in the race of Eber; and when Abraham was called to be the father of a chosen nation, and it was promised that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, he must have understood by it that the long-expected Redeemer, the seed of the woman, was to be born of his posterity. So the promise was understood as it was localized successively in the tribe of Judah and in the family of David. And the later prophets never waver in the idea that it was to be accomplished by a "Person," whose birthplace at Bethlehem is distinctly announced by Micah. He was then an individual, not a multitude. To express this in English we should say; it was not to seeds as of many; but as of One, and "to thy seed, which is Christ," without any reference to the intrinsic etymological value of the singular and plural. Similarly, St. Paul uses these words, not arguing from the force of the singular in the promise, but from the whole idea and understanding of that promise which he simply explains by the singular and plural in Greek. (Professor Gardiner.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. WEB: Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn't say, "To seeds," as of many, but as of one, "To your seed," which is Christ.