We have now come to the point in the creation record, where mankind must be divided. God had divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:4), and he divided the waters from the waters (Genesis 1:6), and he divided the day from the night (Genesis 1:14, 18). At this point, and sometime after the seventh day of creation, God chose to divide mankind, whom he made on the sixth day to be both male and female, together, in a personal, physical unity, which might reflect the unity of the Godhead, where Light (1John 1:5) dwells in LIGHT (cp. 1Timothy 6:16). Afterward, however, mankind would be established as individual males and individual females, and they would have to choose to attain a spiritual unity in their labor (Genesis 2:24).
What the Lord did was cause a deep sleep to come over the man, and, while he slept, God removed one of his tsela (H6763), meaning, rib, side, or chamber. The word is translated to pleura in the Greek Septuagint (G4125), meaning rib or side. It is what the Roman soldier pierced to be assured of Jesus’ death (John 19:34). In the Hebrew it would later be used for a chamber in the Temple of God (1Kings 6:5, 8; Ezekiel 41:5-9, 11, 26). The word is rendered rib by the English translators only at Genesis 2:21 and 22.
When I first brought this to the attention of an opponent in a discussion about Jesus being God in the flesh, he told me it was a disgusting image. Let my reader choose for himself whatever he wishes to think. Jesus tells us that he came out from God, out of heaven to the earth (John 16:27; cp. 1:18; 3:13; 6:46; 8:42). He is Light (1John 1:5) and dwells in Light (1Timothy 6:16). When God created mankind, he created him wholly in one physicality (Genesis 1:26-27). Just as God is one Spirit (cp. John 4:24), mankind was physically one flesh, male and female, but physically one person. God above the heavens created the whole universe and everything within it through God, who came out from him (cp. John 16:27). Similarly, I could say that I “created” my family through my wife, and my daughters came into existence out from her.
According to nearly all of the translations I possess, Adam responded to what God did with: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23). A few put body for bone, but for the most part it is translated as it is in the King James Bible. I believe bone gives the wrong picture. Body is better but not perfect. The Hebrew word is selfsame (day) in Genesis 7:13; 17:23, 26 to offer a few. The same Hebrew word for bone (etsem; H6106) is translated life in Job 7:14. The point is that the context has a better fit with either body or life, and, of the two, I prefer life. Adam was saying the woman was of his selfsame substance, his selfsame life, not the substance of any of the animals he’d been naming, nor was she of their nephesh (life/soul).
According to Jesus, it was the Lord, not Adam (as some assume) who says, “Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; cp. Matthew 19:4-5). The word for cling or cleave is an interesting word, as it pertains to becoming one flesh. The word is dabaq (H1692). In the Law the word is used of walking after the Lord and being devoted to him (Deuteronomy 10:20; 11:22). It is also used of plagues or pestilence (Deuteronomy 28:21, 60) and sickness or diseases “clinging” (H1692) to those who walk against the Lord. The word has to do with an inner purpose to devote oneself to a person or to God. It is the kind of inner purpose that consumes one’s energy, and in a negative context its image is a plague or a sickness that consumes the energy and life of the one it attacks.
The chapter concludes with, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25). All of the commentaries I have point to the nudity of the couple, but this is nonsense. Consider the Lord’s reaction later: “Who told you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11). Were they idiots who couldn’t tell they had no clothes on? By the way, it is a presumption that they were nude. They might have been, but that’s just an opinion. The text doesn’t say one way or another.
Paul mentions a hope of not being naked after death. He says if our earthly house (our body) were destroyed (death) we have a building of God (a spiritual body) made without hands, eternal in the heavens (2Corinthians 5:1). We long to be clothed with this body/house from heaven (2Corinthians 5:2), if being clothed we won’t be found naked (2Corinthians 5:3)! Seen in this context, Adam and Eve didn’t have a physical body in the beginning, their souls were unclothed, having no earthly house/body to cover their souls. But, more about this in our study of chapter three.
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