Genesis 2:18

Introduction

In our last lesson we saw how the creation story narrowed in on the creation of man. Genesis 2 retells the story with this focus, and we learned how man was created first, and he was placed in a garden paradise where he was allowed to eat from every tree except for one, with the ominous warning that he would he die if he did. The second half of chapter 2 now turns to the origin of woman.

Genesis 2:18-24

Despite living in what can be described as a paradise with everything at his disposal, God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone.

This is the first time in the first two chapters that we see God declare something not good!

At one level, this principle could be applied to all humans. God created us to be social creatures and live in community. We aren’t meant to be alone!

But the literal application towards men should also not be ignored. Men who isolate themselves, not just romantically, but in socially tend towards greater rates of depression, suicide, anger, and harming of others. In our society today, there is an epidemic of loneliness among young men who isolate and spend their lives completely on the internet.

God has a solution (doesn’t He always?) - make a “helper” “fit” for him.

Helper is the Hebrew word ezer (later Samuel will raise his Ebenezer, or stone of help).

Fit is the Hebrew word neged, which means “opposite, against, correspond” or some might say, “adversary”.

There is something of a funny paradox in this phrase. Whoever God is going to make is going to be helpful to Adam, but also challenge him.

Adam is the Hebrew word for “man” - so both words are used interchangeably throughout this passage, and it’s hard to say whether it’s actually a proper name per se.

The framing of this thought makes it seem like we might see what God makes right away. But instead we get a brief interlude with the creation of the animals in vs. 19-20.

God brings all the animals to the man “to see what he would call them”. This is a remarkable amount of cooperation that God offers to the man!

God has created everything himself and could have easily named the animals himself, but instead he allows the man to do the naming. God wants us to be active participants in His creation!

Some people have said that this could be considered the first act of Science. Humans exploring, studying, and naming God’s creation in order to better understand it, and ultimately Him!

This is the origin of the names of creatures and our involvement in Creation. But it is also tied to that original statement that God intended to make a partner for Adam - seeing his reaction to the naming of animals and not finding a suitable “helper” among them tells us that the animals may be good, but they are still separate from us.

It should be noted that both man and the animals were made from the ground, so one might expect this “helper” to also come from the same substance. She would, just not in the way we might expect!

Now comes the origin of woman: Adam is put into a deep sleep and the Lord God takes one of his ribs and builds the woman from this rib. She is in fact made of the same substance as the man, but not like the animals! She is made from a part of him!

This act of creation is remembered through a poem that Adam says. It’s an easy way to remember that man and woman are intimately connected, one coming from the other. In Hebrew, it’s a play on words, too. Woman is ishshah and man is ish. Our English words for man and woman also echo this play on words.

The poem also doubles as an explanation for marriage. Verses 24 explains this origin as well.

This verse sets the framework for the theology of marriage throughout the Bible. In the ancient world, this idea of a man “leaving his father and mother” was that of leaving the tent of his parents and building his own tent in the family.

Despite polygamy becoming a regular occurrence in Scripture, it was never the ideal. God always intended for monogamy, which is what we see here - marriage is only meant for one man and one woman.

This idea of being “one flesh” is all encompassing, but it’s also an explanation of the power of sex. The Lord Jesus will use it as an explanation for why divorce is not cut and dry (Matt 19:5), and Paul will use it to warn against sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:16).

And in the very next verse Paul uses the same concept to describe our relationship with the Lord - 1 Corinthians 6:17 “But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”

The word for “one” is the same used in Deuteronomy 6:4 ““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” This is good when thinking about how God is Triune, or three persons in One. The unity of marriage gives us something of an idea of how something can be multiple but also singular.

Now in chapter 3, Adam will officially name his wife Eve, but we see a hint of it here in this poem. Remember how God had him name the animals, and none were suitable for him. Now he finds the “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” and he names her woman/Eve.

This final verse of chapter 2 has cause much intrigue. What does it mean that they were naked and not ashamed?

It’s going to come back into play later after the fall when they become knowledgeable of their nakedness and then are ashamed of it.

I follow St. Augustine on the meaning here: nakedness brings shame because it involves a loss of control. The parts of our bodies that we keep hidden, clothed, or “private”, are the parts of our bodies we have the least control over. This is especially true of sex, which is why even the most depraved people still have sex in private places. Augustine said, “A man would rather get punched in the face in front of an arena full of people than be watched having lawful intercourse with his wife by them.”

This is a physical reminder of the fall: sin is often momentarily losing control of our bodies, and therefore it brings shame.

This is all what happens after the fall. But here at the end of chapter 2 we see a time when humans were in complete control of their bodies and therefore there was nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of.

As we will see, sin is first the rebellion of the soul, and second the rebellion of the body. That is why through baptism our souls are redeemed first (the “first resurrection”), and later our bodies will also be redeemed at the physical (second) resurrection. In the end, we will once again have full control of our bodies because both our body and soul will be in submission to Christ.

Other Theology From these Passages

If you haven’t noticed already, these first couple of chapters are chock full of theological foundations. I’ve already mentioned several, but here are a few more.

Adam being created before Eve became the theological basis for several issues in the church, particularly for Paul. I won’t dive deep into these issue, but simply want to make you aware of them.

It’s the basis for Paul’s discussion on how women should speak in the early church, 1 Timothy 2:13 “For Adam was formed first, then Eve;”

It’s also the basis of his discussion on head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:8–9 “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” and 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.”

It also seems to be the Scriptural ideas behind certain passages on Christian marriage like 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 5:22-33.

The Ephesians passage is particularly important.

This is where Paul reveals that marriage points to something deeper. Ephesians 5:32 “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

The implications are that the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church “which is His body”. This is why Paul says wives should submit to their husbands as “the church submits to Christ.”

But then he puts the greater burden on the husband: loving and protecting your wife, just as Christ loves, sanctifies and protects the Church. Paul justifies all this by using that same body language from Genesis 2.

Ephesians 5:28–31 “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.””

Finally, it is theologically significant that God created all of humanity from a single man. I love this quote from St. Augustine.

"God knew also that mortals would reach such a pitch of boundless sin and evil, that brute beasts, deprived of rational thought, would live in greater security and peace among their own kind than humans, whose race was derived from a single ancestor, a fact which was intended to foster harmony among them. Yet not even lions or serpents have ever carried on among themselves the kind of warfare in which men engage. For the human race is, more than any other species, at once social by nature and quarrelsome by perversion. And the greatest warning against this perversion or disharmony is given by the facts of human nature. We are warned to guard against the emergence of this fault, or to remedy it when once it has appeared, by remembering that first parent of ours, who was created by God as one individual with this in mind: that from that one individual a multitude might be made, and that this fact should teach mankind to preserve a harmonious unity in plurality."

Conclusion

Let’s take a final minute to thank God that he made women, who Paul calls the “glory of man”. Woman may have come from man, but man is born of woman, and that’s why it was so important that Jesus Christ was “born of a woman”. By giving birth to Christ, Mary ultimately fulfilled the promises given to Eve. In a world where so many women are still mistreated, Scripture teaches us that they are also made in the image of God and worthy of respect and honor as the “joint heirs with you of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7).