In general, the theology and history of Mary the Mother of God
follow the chronological order of their respective sources, i.e.
the Old Testament, the New Testament, the early Christian and
Jewish witnesses. The first prophecy referring to Mary is found
in the very opening chapters of the Book of Genesis (3:15): "I
will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and
her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait
for her heel." This rendering appears to differ in two respects
from the original Hebrew text: (1) First, the Hebrew text
employs the same verb for the two renderings "she shall crush"
and "thou shalt lie in wait"; the Septuagint renders the verb
both times by terein, to lie in wait; Aquila, Symmachus, the
Syriac and the Samaritan translators, interpret the Hebrew verb
by expressions which mean to crush, to bruise; the Itala renders
the terein employed in the Septuagint by the Latin "servare", to
guard; St. Jerome  maintains that the Hebrew verb has the
meaning of "crushing"