Genesis 2:21–25 — A Deep Sleep Fell Upon Adam

Scripture Reading: Genesis 2:21–25; Ephesians 5:30–32

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

“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.”

Jehovah Elohim: The Name of Relationship, Not Two Documents

Chapter 1 uses Elohim exclusively. From chapter 2:4 onward, the designation is Jehovah Elohim, and it continues through chapter 3. The documentary hypothesis — that one writer knew God as Elohim and another as Jehovah, and that a redactor stitched together these sources in a sloppy manner — is not only wrong; it is downright silly, and worse than silly, because it is the spirit of those who say we will not have this man to reign over us. It is infidelity dressed in scholarship.

The two names are used with divine precision. Elohim is God in his capacity as creator and supreme power; the name used in Genesis 1, where God is bringing the created order into being. Jehovah is the name of relationship — it is the name by which God stands in covenant connection with those whom he has made in a special way. When man was created as a living soul by the in-breathing of God, he was put into a relationship with the Creator that no other creature on earth shared. Hence Jehovah Elohim: the Creator who now stands in relationship with this special being. The use of Elohim in the serpent’s words in chapter 3 is deliberate — he wants the relationship forgotten, addressing God only as the supreme power, not as the covenant God. Eve slips onto his ground and replies using the same name. The reappearance of Jehovah Elohim in verse 8 — they heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim walking in the garden — marks the return of the one to whom they are accountable in relationship.

In Noah’s account, Elohim causes the animals to come in, and Jehovah shuts him in. No two documents — simply the precise and appropriate use of the two aspects of the one God. Jacob’s two names, Israel and Jacob, offer a further illustration: Jacob when his own crooked will is at work; Israel when faith is at work. The names are chosen with deliberate care. That is what we have here.

The Deep Sleep: Pointing to the Cross

It was the Lord God who caused the deep sleep to fall upon Adam. The word deep is important. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing — those are the depths into which Christ went. It was a deep sleep, not merely an anesthetic to make the procedure comfortable. The second use of the expression deep sleep in Scripture is in Genesis 15:12, when a horror of great darkness fell upon Abram in connection with what he was shown about the sufferings of Christ. The deep sleep of Genesis 2 is of the same family of meaning: a going into depths that point to the depths of the Lord’s suffering on the cross.

A.P.C.’s words are worth preserving: instead of gazing upon a beautiful creation as the first Adam, Christ gazed upon a wilderness, the fruit of man’s sin, surrounded by wild beasts, led on by Satan to crucify him. He slept, and from his body in death was formed in resurrection a new Eve, to be for his praise and glory forever. The assembly of God owes its all to the pierced side of the Lord Jesus. That wound in his side, from which came forth blood and water, is the origin of everything the assembly is. Eve owed every aspect of her existence to the wound that God made in Adam’s side; there is nothing about Eve that did not have its origin there. The same thing is true of the assembly.

Eve’s Unique Creation: Of the Man, Not of the Earth

No other female on this planet was created in the manner of Eve. The animals were created by divine command, by the fiat of Elohim — let the earth bring forth. Eve was not. She was formed from the rib of Adam, and that formation was also a creation: he created them, male and female (Genesis 5:2). Making, forming, and creating are all involved, and these words are not synonyms. They describe different aspects of the one work. Just as Adam’s unique creation by the in-breathing of God set him apart from all the animals and put him into a special relationship with God, so Eve’s unique creation from Adam’s side sets her apart from all the animals and puts her into a special relationship with him.

First Corinthians 11:8 gives the doctrinal significance: the woman is of the man. Not of the earth as the animals were; of the man. This expresses her origin and her special standing in relation to him. It is not a statement about inferiority but about derivation and order. Then verse 12 balances it: neither is the man without the woman in the Lord, because all men are born of women. Both truths stand together.

Bone of My Bones: Exuberance, Headship, and Complementarity

Adam had reviewed every living creature — every kind that God had brought — and for him there was not found a help meet. Then God brought the woman. This time it is — the exuberance in Adam’s words is unmistakable. After the long fruitless review of all others, here at last was his counterpart. Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh is a statement of deep oneness, as deep as the physical union could express it. She was of him and for him, and he immediately recognized it.

He names her: she shall be called Woman. The Hebrew is Ishah because she was taken out of Ish — the female man, sharing the same root, reflecting the same origin. He had named all the animals; he names her. That is consistent with his headship. The egalitarian argument that the rib-taking implies equality misreads the passage. Equality before God as persons is one thing; equality of function and office is another. Scripture teaches hierarchy: God, Christ, man, woman. It teaches it from Genesis 1 and 2, before the fall, and the fall’s effect on the relationship was to distort that hierarchy into the he shall rule over thee of Genesis 3 — the harsh, unloving exercise of male authority that has characterized the fallen world. The restoration in Christianity, expressed in Ephesians 5, does not abolish the hierarchy; it fills it with the love of Christ.

One Flesh and One Spirit: Two Things Not to Be Confused

They shall be one flesh. This is the foundation of marriage as God established it: a one flesh union, physical in character, between one man and one woman, established for life. It is not dissolved by differences in temperament, intelligence, or spiritual state between the spouses. First Corinthians 7 shows that the one flesh union subsists even where one party is saved and the other is not. The ideal that both husband and wife should be of one mind, one purpose, one spiritual orientation is a blessed thing and to be cultivated — but it does not constitute the fundamental union, which is one flesh.

The spiritual counterpart is entirely different. First Corinthians 6:17 says he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. J.N. Darby capitalizes the S — it is one Spirit, formed by the indwelling Spirit who unites the believer to the risen Christ. That union will subsist for all eternity. The one flesh union is dissolved by death; the one spirit union is indissoluble. In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. The marriage union, which is of the flesh, belongs to this age; the spiritual union of the believer with Christ transcends it entirely. These must never be confused. The depth and permanence of the spiritual union is pointed to by the marriage union, but exceeds it infinitely.

Hosea 2:16 and the Ishi Relationship

The very language of Genesis 2 echoes through the prophets. Hosea 2:16 gives God’s word concerning the restoration of Israel in the latter day: thou shalt call me Ishi — my husband — and thou shalt call me no more Baali — my master. Baali speaks of the governmental relationship that came in under God’s judgment — the rule, the master-and-subject form of the relationship that belongs to the fallen state. Ishi speaks of the affectionate, willing, mutual relationship that belongs to love. In the millennium, Israel will be restored to the Ishi relationship. The very words used go back to Genesis 2, before the fall, before the governmental blight came upon the relationship between God and his people. So the language of the original creation of marriage reaches forward to the language of millennial restoration.

Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.