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"21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'" ~ Genesis 2:21-23
Today, we return to our study of Genesis 2 where God has created all things and pronounced them good, and He has created man and pronounced him very good. This concept of good has been quite prominent thus far in the creation story. The first time God said it was not good was when it became evident that man was alone. So, in order to address this issue, God decided to create Eve, the companion of Adam.
In v.21 of today's passage we read, "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place."
God is the original anesthesiologist and surgeon who caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, so that He could make Eve from Adam. This is the first of seven occurrences of the phrase "deep sleep" in the Old Testament. In each case it refers to a special state induced by the Lord Himself in order to convey an important revelation to, or through, the person experiencing it.
Interestingly, the pioneer of anesthesia, Sir James Young Simpson, was inspired by God's actions in Genesis 2. Simpson took seriously God's Word, and he discovered that the chemical compound chloroform would put people to sleep and prevent them from feeling pain. He then used chloroform to help women in childbirth beginning in the mid 1800s AD. I find it most instructive that when asked of his greatest discovery, Simpson responded that his greatest discovery was that he had a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are not sure if Adam and Eve would have felt any kind of pain while in the Garden of Eden, but even if they didn't, it would probably have been a horrifying experience had Adam watched the operation performed upon him by God. So, it makes sense that God would put him into a "deep sleep" first before performing the procedure.
Throughout the Scriptures, when God put anyone into "deep sleep" which happened seven times in the Old Testament, a new relationship was initiated. While Adam slept, God created a new relationship for him with Eve. In like manner, according to Genesis 15:12, when God initiated a new relationship with Abraham, He put him into a divinely induced, "deep sleep." According to Genesis 28:11, the same thing happened to Jacob when God initiated a new relationship with him.
Earlier, in God's making of Adam, God used the "dust of the ground" to form his body and "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." But, in the making of Eve, God did not go back to the dust; He used one of Adam’s ribs to form and fashion her. It is significant that God made Eve from Adam because earlier God had paraded the animals before Adam knowing Adam would not find a helper suitable for him. Unlike Adam's naming of the animals, the name Adam chose for Eve shows she was of his very nature. The animals were not of his very nature. And that is why God took them out of the ground and took Eve out of Adam.
In v.22 of today's passage we read, "Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man."
The word "rib" are used about thirty-five times in the Old Testament. This is the only time it is ever translate rib. Thirty-four times it’s not translated rib. Twenty of those thirty-five times its translated "side." God literally put Adam to sleep and then slit open his side and took tissue from Adam to show that Adam and Eve were of the same substance. Interestingly, our ribs have amazing regenerative powers. Portions of rib bone and cartilage removed in bone graft surgery will regrow in a few months’ time, as long as the rib perichondrium is left intact. This means that Adam’s loss of a rib was only temporary; he did not have to go through the rest of his life with an incomplete skeletal system.
When God brought Eve to Adam, they were united in marriage: the "woman" in v.22 is called Adam’s "wife" in v.24. The pattern for marriage, the first social institution, was thus established by God in Eden. The manner of Eve’s creation is "why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." The unity of a married couple and the "one flesh" principle are based on the fact that God used one of Adam’s ribs to make the woman. A successful marriage is not merely that two people live together compatibly. It involves a third Person. It is most difficult to develop a satisfying love relationship apart from God because love is an exotic, something which comes from outside of us, produced by the activity of God in our lives. We are best positioned to develop an adequate love relationship with our partner when we are cultivating our love relationship with Jesus Christ.
In v.23 of today's passage we read, "And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'"
The woman was made from the man and she was made for the man. God created man and woman and determined every detail that would perfectly fill every void in each other. What one lacked, the other filled. Every need finds its fulfillment. This was a marriage where the blending of their two psyches merged. It is for this reason that divorce is such a terrible thing, especially after years of marriage. Divorce is literally the tearing apart of a person. It is the dividing up of a single life, much as you would take an ax and split a body in two. No wonder it is so terribly painful.
God's institution of the home is the most important human institution. It is significant that cultures of all times and sorts have acknowledged the superiority of monogamy, even though they have not always practiced it. Such an awareness could not be a product of evolution, since it does not characterize most animals, and thus can only be explained in terms of God's creation and revelation.
Furthermore, the fact that the very first wedding took place at the very "beginning of creation," rather than billions of years after the beginning, was confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in Mark 10:6-9 which reads, "6 But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.'"
The one word above all that makes marriage successful is the word "ours." When God brought Eve to Adam, he had a new pronoun, the word "us." Magnifying Adam's understanding of this is revealed in his words: "Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Thus, as the New Testament so wisely points out, the man who hurts his wife hurts himself. He may not feel it directly, but down the line the result of it will show in his life, because she shares one life with him. They had become one flesh. More on this magnificent concept of oneness in tomorrow's study.
