WHEN MARRIAGE IS QUESTIONED

Genesis 2:18-25

Marriage is between one male and one female, for life.

While "marriage" in the modern society tends to focus upon what makes one feel good, and is thus said to be nothing more than a legal contractual relationship between any two objects, God set another example for us and points out that the true marriage relationship is the completion of a whole human being.  Not just two individuals becoming companions (dining partners).  


In Genesis Chapter 1:26 "God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.'  So God created man in His own image;  He created him in the image of God;  He created them male and female."

We have looked at meanings of what being created in the image of God means in other lessons, but what is the first image of God given to us?  That of creator.  What is human kind known for that sets it apart from animals?  Its creations–societies, buildings, constructions, etc.  Animals don't "create" to the same degree that humankind does.  Unlike the animals we have a body, soul and spirit conducive to creating things and altering the environs in which we live. But like the fish of the sea, birds of the air and the beasts of the land, humankind was created to live on the earth. 

In the Hebrew text the word adam can mean “human being”, and not necessarily just a male human being. Both men and women—are referred to as “adam” by God. In the passage above the reference to “man” is not specifically to a male human (ish in Hebrew).  Both male (ish) and female (ishah) had the same source–ha’adam, and shared the same flesh, made from the same ground, that had been personally enlivened by God’s own breath.

Presumably, the earliest humankind lived much as the beasts did, being fruitful and multiplying as the physical urge struck them with whoever caught their fancy.  But God said it is not good for human kind (not just the male) to be alone, so God constructed a helper that was suitable for the one referenced in this passage the ish (male).

The Hebrew phrase translated "deep sleep" is commonly thought of as some kind of surgical anesthesia and surgical operation, but the word for "rib" is a Hebrew word meaning "side."  A surgery that takes a whole side of a human is not likely be survivable 😉  BUT if you look at the Hebrew word for "deep sleep" is means lethargy, or just sleep.  Taken at face value, and considering other episodes of dream visions in the Bible, it is highly likely that this vision is referring to being made sensitive to something in the spiritual realm.  God explaining to ish the significance of a lifelong mate in the female (isha) created by God to complete him.  

If interpreted as a visionary dream from God, what Adam saw in a dream while asleep was something that God wanted him to understand about the inherent nature of the woman that was his counterpart, his supporter and helper. 

Favoring this interpretation is that Adam’s response is a knowing one (“bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh”), suggesting that he is aware of what took place. Also favoring the dream view is that the word often translated rib everywhere else refers to one of two sides, suggesting that God took one of Adam’s “sides” to build Eve.  

Here we have God creating a female (isha) for a man (ish) that God said was a match for him, that made him a whole person.  She was connected to him as closely as his own side was connected to him.  

More than merely a convenient partner, this marriage, created by God, was a demonstration that ish and isha are ideally suited to combine their very selves to create a new "human being."  It is also fun to note that the female chromosomes (XX) are both one "side" of the male chromosomes (XY).  Thus, truly, the isha is from one "side" of the ish.

While it might might become "legal", marriage between a human and a lamp post, or some other animal will never become the pattern that God had intended for ish and isha in becoming a new, and completed human being.  As with everything else, it is a matter of choice – choose to follow God's pattern, or choose to follow your own way.