So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the LORD God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man.’ This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.”
Genesis 2:21-25
As we have seen from Genesis 1, God created man in his image as male and female for the purpose of displaying his communicable attributes and multiplying in order to exercise dominion over the earth. This leaves us wondering exactly how God expects this to happen and what kind of relationship is necessary in order for the male and female to accomplish these goals. Genesis 2 records in greater detail the sixth day of creation on which the Lord made both man and woman, and it reveals what Gerhard Aalders called “the beautiful mystery of marriage,” the institution by which man was to fulfill the divine purpose.
First of all, the Bible tells us that God placed the man that he had made in a beautiful garden filled with everything necessary to sustain life. The garden of Eden had a constant supply of fresh water and an abundance of every variety of fruit and vegetable, but it lacked one thing: a helper corresponding to man. The language here is important and worth noting. When God speaks of a helper he uses a term that generally means assistance or support in either a military or personal capacity. This term occurs nearly 80 times in the OT most often describing God himself, so its use here in referring to the woman should not be seen as an indication that she is of secondary importance to the man. When God said it was not good for man to be alone, he meant that the man needed someone who could assist and support him by providing something that he lacked in and of himself. The term corresponding is in agreement with this. It means the opposite of something, or a thing’s counterpart. Here in Gen. 2 it refers specifically to the fact that the woman corresponds exactly to the man as his complement rather than his mirror image. She provides that which the man lacks because God has designed her so.
But rather than simply remedying this situation immediately, the Lord revealed this need to the man by causing all the animals and birds to parade before him, so that he could name them. This act demonstrated that man indeed was made to be the master of earth, yet it also made it perfectly clear to Adam that he was alone and that being alone was not good. The same language is repeated here to show that man now saw what God already knew: “but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him.” At this point the Lord graciously provided that which was lacking for man to be complete. He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and he took flesh from his side and fashioned it into a woman whom he then presented to the man. In response Adam paid her a great compliment, composing a poem in which he gave her a name derived from his own.1
The relationship, then, between man and woman is explained in v.24. A man is to leave his parents and bond with his wife in such a way that they who were two individuals become one flesh; we call this union, “marriage”. Derek Kidner comments: “the union of the two in marriage is to be an exclusive, permanent, God-sealed bond.” It is exclusive because a man must leave his father and mother, severing the closest of familial ties in order to be free to devote himself to his wife alone. It is permanent because he is to be bonded or joined to his wife as though they were two pieces fitted together and sealed with glue. And this bond is formed by God because he was the one who designed woman for man and brought her to him.
Thus we have God’s definition of marriage as a permanent bond between a man and his corresponding helper, of necessity a woman, which is formed by God when the man has left his own family in order to create this new one-flesh union. Such a union is impossible between mirror opposites such as two men or two women, since they do not correspond to one another and therefore cannot become one flesh. This being the case, it is improper to speak of “same-sex” or “gay” marriage, as these cannot meet the basic definition found in Scripture, but we will have more to say on that later.
In his book, Paradise to Prison, John Davis summarizes the passage with the following points:
- Marriage was instituted by God.
- Marriage is to be monogamous; God gave Adam just one wife.
- Marriage is to be heterosexual; the mate whom God created for Adam, a male, was Eve, a female.
- The husband and wife are to be unified physically and spiritually, knit together by love and mutual respect.
- The husband is to be the head of the wife. Adam was created before Eve, and Eve was created as a partner for Adam, one who complemented him and corresponded to him.
1In Hebrew, just as in English, these terms are clearly related with the second being derived from the first, ’ish for man and ’ishsha for woman, demonstrating that woman is indeed man’s physical counterpart.