Knowing The Word in Genesis 2:18-23, The Creation of Woman

18 Then the Lord God said [this phrase is repeated for the first time since chapter 1], “It is not good that the man should be alone [a startling divine observation]; I will make him a helper fit [“fit” means matching, expressing the notion of complementary] for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. [By naming them, the man is given authority over them.] 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam [Adamah in Hebrew, literally “earth-man”] there was not found a helper fit for him. [The delay in finding the helper allows us to feel Adam’s loneliness. As each pair of animals passes by, Adam sees each creature has a partner except for him.] 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep [divinely induced sleep occurs for important acts of God’s revelations] to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. [Just as the rib is found at the side of the man and is attached to him, even so a good wife. She was not made out of his head to top him or out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. The God-created partner is introduced to man by the creator himself. The man’s passivity in the match-making process is notable at this first wedding where God the Father gives the bride away.] 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh [where English speaks of blood relationships, Hebrew speaks of relatives as one’s flesh and bone]; she shall be called Woman [by naming her, Adam makes her subordinate to himself, which is the biblical pattern for taking responsibility for a person, to care for and support her], because she was taken out of Man.” [God names and renames people in the Old Testament—notably Abraham and Sarah—and Jesus does the same in the New Testament—notably Peter—and thus takes responsibility for their destinies in working out divine purposes. Some struggle with the apparent equality of Adam and Eve in her creation and then her subsequent subordination after his naming her. However, Adam becomes ultimately responsible for Eve’s actions and his own in leading to the fall. Adam’s abdication of his responsibility, when questioned later by God, shows his inability to exercise his divinely given authority. Ultimately it will take Jesus and the recreation of humans through his Spirit to right the sins that led to the fall when, as Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”]