Bible Readings — Bible Questions Answered

A Woman From the Man

What, therefore, did God do? BR-ASI9 457.8

“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.” Genesis 2:21, 22. BR-ASI9 457.9

Note.—How beautiful, in its fullness of meaning, is this simple but suggestive story, at which skeptics sneer. God did not make man after the order of the lower animals, but “in His own image.” Neither did He choose man’s companion, or “help,” from some other order of beings, but made her from man—of the same substance. And He took this substance, not from man’s feet, that he might have an excuse to degrade, enslave, or trample upon her; nor from man’s head, that woman might assume authority over man; but from man’s side, from over his heart, the seat of affections, that woman might stand at his side as man’s equal, and, side by side with him, together, under God, work out the purpose and destiny of the race—man, the strong, the noble, the dignified; woman, the weaker, the sympathetic, the loving. How much more exalted and inspiring is this view than the theory that man developed from the lower order of animals. BR-ASI9 457.10

What did Adam say as he received his wife from God? BR-ASI9 458.1

“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 2:23. BR-ASI9 458.2