And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon Man; and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up flesh in its stead.
Nothing God had made so far matched the man. So God does not form a second creature from the ground. He puts the man to sleep and takes something out of his side. Commentators find in that method both the pattern for marriage and a picture of the cross.
The Hebrew word here is not the word for ordinary rest. One writer, tracing the same term through Scripture, notes how narrow its use is:
A deep sleep — in Hebrew, tardemah. The word is never used of natural sleep. It is used of sleep that is either supernatural, sent for a special purpose, or spiritual, sent as part of God's dealings in governing man.
Why sleep at all, and why a rib? One writer finds kindness in the method, and an answer about rank in the place the rib came from:
God would give man the gift of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the exchange of affection. The end was good, and so was the way. He put the man into a trance, as the Greek version of the Old Testament renders it. So the man felt no pain, yet knew fully what God was giving him. She was not taken from his head, and not from his feet. She was not an absolute equal, and not an utter inferior. She came from his side: the object of nearest love and sustaining care, one who shared all joy and sorrow while depending on him.
God was not limited to this method. One writer notes the care in it, right down to the closed wound:
Of course God could have created a wife for Adam in a different way, if that had been His will. But He chose to do it in a way that man would never have imagined, showing a wisdom far higher than man's. He caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and removed one of his ribs, closing up the wound (without stitches!).
How God made the woman carries moral weight. One writer presses it on the reader's conscience:
If God had created the woman separately from the man, it would have been a bare fact with nothing to teach us. Instead, God keeps this striking detail for the account of moral relationship. And may I put it to the conscience of every soul: is this event not placed exactly where it should be? We all know how ready man is to forget the truth, and how often might takes advantage of right. God, for His part, was pleased to form the woman, and to reveal how He formed her. He did it in a way that ought to shame any man who admits she is his own flesh and bone, and yet slights or misuses a relationship so close.
Adam's sleep also points forward. One writer sees in it a picture of the death of Christ, whom he calls the "last Adam":
It takes little to see in that deep sleep God sent on Adam a figure of the deeper and more mysterious sleep of the "last Adam." The woman came out of the sleeping man, as the Church came out of Christ's death. And the creative Spirit builds the Church up as His body, "of His flesh and of His bones."
The parallel runs down to the wounded side itself. One writer sets the two scenes side by side:
The Risen One breathed the spirit of resurrection life on those for whom He had died. He had made the first Adam a living soul. He was the same One who took the rib out of sleeping Adam's side and made Adam's helper out of it. One day a soldier's spear would pierce His own side and draw out the blood and the water. That was to fit the bride the Father had given Him to live with Him in glory.
Eve did not exist before Adam's sleep. One writer applies that to Christ, and it settles when the church began:
Adam fell into a deep sleep, and God built from a rib out of his side a woman, whom He presented to Adam as a helper suited to him. In the same way, the helper suited to Christ came into being after His death. The church did not spring out of the living body. There was no union with Christ when He became man. Through His death this new body came into being.
- Sleep — the word is never used of ordinary sleep. God sent it for a purpose of His own.
- Side — not from the head, not from the feet, but from the side: nearest love, sustaining care, shared joy and sorrow.
- Cost — God took something out of the man before He gave anything to him. The pattern points on to a pierced side, blood and water.
- Timing — the helper did not exist before the sleep. Commentators read this to mean the church came out of Christ's death, not before it.
- Conscience — a man who calls the woman his own bone and flesh, then slights her, denies the way God made her.
And Jehovah Elohim built the rib that he had taken from Man into a woman; and brought her to Man.
Adam was alone, and God acted. He took part of the man himself, made a woman, and gave her to him. Commentators read both halves — the making and the giving — as the pattern for every marriage since, and as a picture of Christ and the church.
The Hebrew word rendered "rib" is used widely in the Old Testament. One writer points out how translators handle it everywhere else:
It is worth noticing that the Hebrew word translated "rib" here is in every other case translated, no less than nineteen times, as "side."
Where God took the material from carries meaning. One writer draws a lesson from it about how the man and the woman stand toward each other:
He would give man the gift of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the exchange of affection. The end was good, and so was the way. He threw the man into a trance, as the Greek translators put it. Adam would not feel pain, yet would know perfectly what God was giving him. It was not a separate human being independent of Adam. It was not from the head nor from the feet — not an absolute equal, nor an utter inferior — but from his side. Others long ago have observed what that means: she is the object of nearest love and sustaining care, a sharer of all joy and sorrow, joined to him yet dependent on him.
The Hebrew verb behind "made" is "built." One writer follows that word forward:
When it comes to the way God's act of creating Eve is described, the word "built" catches our attention. It was certainly an act of creation. Yet the wording is unusual: God "built the rib into a woman." This is the first time this verb (to build) appears in the Bible. In Ephesians 2:20, 22 the word for the building of the church comes from the same root as the word used here, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The church is presented here as companion. But the mention that God "built" Eve is meant to confirm the truth that the builder of the church is a divine One. The Lord Himself said to Peter: "on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:18).
Adam did not find her; God gave her. One writer, using the Hebrew names for God, calls that giving the founding pattern of marriage:
As Jehovah Elohim was pleased to build his rib into an Ishah (woman), so He brought her to the man. This is the highest and best form of marriage. The woman was received, as it were, from the divine hand. She came not from Elohim only, but from Him who in all His action recorded here was perfectly laying the ground for mutual duty in the relationship of marriage.
How Eve came to be still shapes marriage today. One writer treats Adam's case as the model, not the exception:
The woman was formed by divine handiwork, not from the dust of the ground as Adam had been, but out of Adam himself. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. The marriage of Adam is the prototype of the marriage of all his sons. In every case of true marriage, God arranges the union. Divine wisdom notices the moment when the man's loneliness is no longer good for him. He then provides a bride who is the complement of his nature, with its personal characteristics. Adam had no choice of brides; there was only the one that would suit him, and she was prepared by God especially for him.
The pattern reaches further than marriage. One writer sets out what had to happen before the church could begin:
Scripture fully warrants us in looking at Adam and Eve as a type of Christ and the church. So the death of Christ had to be an accomplished fact before the church could be set up. Yet in the purpose of God she was looked at, and chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world.
Yet the picture is not an exact match, and the difference is the point:
We may find a contrast to Christ in Genesis 2:22. The Lord God presented Eve to Adam; in Ephesians 5:27 Christ presents the church to Himself. Why is this? The answer is very simple — Christ is God.
- Sleep — Adam felt no pain, yet knew perfectly what God was giving. The gift came while he slept, not by his work.
- Side — the same Hebrew word is translated "side" nineteen other times. She came not from the head or the feet, but from his side.
- Built — this is the first "build" in the Bible. The same root returns for the building of the church, and the builder is divine.
- Brought — she came from God's own hand. That giving sets the pattern for every true marriage.
- Beyond — the picture stops short at one point. God presented Eve to Adam; Christ presents the church to Himself, because Christ is God.
And Man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a man.
These are the first recorded words of a human being. In Adam's cry we find the origin of marriage, the origin of the word "woman," and a picture of something far larger.
One writer asks why God did not make the woman separately out of the dust, as He had made Adam:
Man was alone, and it was not good that he should be so... If God had created someone else out of the dust, apart from Adam, where would Adam's supremacy have been? And where would the tender closeness of relationship that such a companion needs have been? ... His exclamation clearly shows the joy with which he received her. It also shows that he saw the infinite wisdom that had provided him a partner and companion. She was distinct from him, and so the object of his affection and delight. Yet she was so mysteriously linked with his existence that she had once been part of himself.
Everything he ruled over had been a blank until this moment.
When he awoke out of sleep and saw standing by his side the fair one whom the Lord God, in His goodness, had provided for him, he exclaimed, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The blank was now filled up. He had seen nothing till now to suit his heart.
In Hebrew the two words echo each other: Ishah (woman) taken out of Ish (man). No one had told Adam what God did while he slept, yet he knew at once. The writer below keeps the Hebrew words in an older rendering of the verse:
The woman now came to him as it were from God's own hand... "the man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Ishah, for out of Ish was taken this." He knew at once how close and fitting this relationship was, though until then he had not known God's purpose. And he gave her a name that expressed the fact perfectly.
Naming her also placed her in a particular relation to him:
Note the intelligence of Adam and his knowledge of the mystery of the woman's creation... He gives her a name, but owns that she is part of himself. This time it is so, as the name itself shows — part of himself, yet subject to him.
She was not made the way Adam was made.
God formed the woman by His own hand. He did not take her from the dust of the ground, as He had taken Adam, but out of Adam himself. So the woman really was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. God saw that Adam was incomplete while he was alone, and gave him a partner designed to meet exactly what he lacked. So in their marriage the two became one flesh, each completing the other.
The way God chose to make her, and the way He chose to record it, carries moral weight.
We all know how ready man has been to forget the truth — how often power takes advantage of what is right! God, for His part, chose to form woman, and to reveal how He formed her, in a way that should shame any man who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses so close a relationship.
This has something to say about every marriage since:
Adam's marriage is the pattern for the marriage of all his sons. In every true marriage, God arranges the union... Adam had no choice of brides; there was only one who would suit him, and God had prepared her especially for him.
Ephesians 5 takes Adam's words and applies them to Christ and the church. The order of cause and effect is worth noticing:
The relationship of husband and wife is not merely a convenient illustration. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that God modelled marriage on what He already had in His mind — the relationship of Christ and the church. In other words, God had the relationship of Christ and His church in mind in His eternal purpose, and only later, in time, did He institute marriage.
One writer warns against getting the link backwards:
The link is not between the Lord as Man and men in general. It was not true, as some say, that in becoming Man He became flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. It is we, His people, who are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone (Eph. 5:30). For this, too, death had to come in... It was in the deep sleep that fell on Adam — the image of that death-sleep — that Eve was taken out of his side.
- Alone. Adam alone was not good; his solitude left him incomplete, and nothing in creation could fill the gap.
- Out of him. God did not form her from dust, but from Adam himself. That origin makes the tie so close.
- Named by him. Ishah out of Ish — Adam read God's work at a glance and gave her a name that states the fact.
- Owed to her. A man who calls the woman his own flesh and bone, then slights or misuses her, stands condemned by this verse.
- Fulfilled in Christ. God modelled marriage on His eternal purpose. Through Christ's death-sleep, His people — not humanity at large — became flesh of His flesh.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
These closing words of the Eden account are not story but rule. God set out marriage here before there was a second family on earth. Adam had no parents to leave. So who is speaking here, and how far do these words reach?
The sentence describes something Adam could never have faced. It looks ahead to those who would come after him.
The first verse describes circumstances entirely different from those of Adam, who had no father or mother to leave.
When people asked the Lord about divorce, He went back to this verse and to who first spoke it.
As He had already answered: "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:3-8). It is not Adam who said this, but God.
"Leave" marks a change in where a man's first duty lies.
Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship he stands in is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents. But when he marries he leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. From then on she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no longer two but one flesh.
"Hold fast" answers two questions at once: how many, and how.
This verse settles many questions. He holds fast to his wife — only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are completely unscriptural. Holding fast to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.
Later law allowed divorce. So which passage shows God's real mind about marriage?
Now the same lawgiver who allowed divorces had, in an earlier book of the law, made known how God first set up marriage. That first account has no clause permitting divorce. Both passages (Deut. 24:1; Gen. 2:23-24) were God's Word. The first was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts"… The second (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie… So we are taken back to how marriage began, and reminded of how God sees it — two made one flesh, whom He has joined, and whom therefore man should not separate.
God formed this union while the man and woman were still sinless. The ruin that followed did not cancel what He had set up.
It matters greatly that God set up marriage between Adam and Eve while they were still innocent. When they were joined, sin had not entered the world, and death, its just penalty, had not yet come. But when their disobedience brought sin in, marriage kept the holy character God gave it when He set it up.
The same union points past marriage, and becomes a reason for personal purity.
That union is meant to remind the Christian of his own blessed privilege: he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him — not one flesh, but one spirit. This is so because he has received the Holy Spirit. So impurity is a sin not only against his own body, but against the Trinity and the price paid for him. "Glorify God then in your body."
Ephesians 5 ties this verse to Christ and the church. That picture was no afterthought.
God cast Adam into a deep sleep and formed Eve from a rib taken from his side. This is a picture of the church, which was formed by the death of Christ. Ephesians 5:25-32 brings this out so clearly that there can be no mistake about its meaning. Marriage was not just a handy illustration of Christ and the church. God designed it from the start to be a picture of that union.
Even the "leaving" finds its counterpart.
Christ, as man, left what belonged to Him through His link with His earthly people, Israel, so that He might gain and have the church… The marriage bond, therefore, becomes the picture of the union of the church with Christ.
- Speaker — the words describe a man with parents to leave, which Adam never had. The Lord traced them back to God Himself.
- Leave — marriage moves a man's first responsibility off his parents and onto his wife, and a new home begins.
- Hold fast — one wife only, held with love, faithfulness and devotedness.
- One flesh — God tied the two together before sin entered, and sin did not undo it. Later permission to divorce met hard hearts; it was not the original order.
- Picture — the same verse points to the believer joined to the Lord as one spirit, and to Christ and the church. Marriage was designed to picture that from the start.