God Created Woman

Genesis means “beginnings” and I love the stories in Genesis, particularly the creation. In the beginning God took six periods of time and proceeded to create the earth and all that is on it. After each period of time he declares, “It is good.” But after he creates man, he says, “Is is not good.” The reason is because man alone is incomplete—he is not completed in the image of God which we are told in Genesis 1:27 is both “male and female.” In other words, a man alone cannot be a God but must be sealed to a woman to be like God.

So to complete man in the image of God, God figuratively takes a rib from the man and makes a woman. This is an interesting metaphor. We’ve all heard the comparison that God used a rib instead of a foot or a head because woman was to walk beside man and not be ruled over by man. But more interesting is the fact that in the Hebrew the word translated as rib also means side. The King James translators could just as accurately have translated the verse to read that God took one side of the man and made woman.

It is also interesting to understand the words translated as help meet which in Hebrew is ezer knegdo. Ezer, which appears 21 times in the Old Testament,means help and 16 of those times it refers to God. Throughout history people have used this verse to maintain that woman is to be man’s servant and subject to him. But God is not our servant nor is He subject to us. Servitude and subjection are not the meaning of the Hebrew word ezer. Instead it means the kind of help that alleviates a problem. Because of the Fall you and I have a problem, but Jesus Christ is our help in that He overcame the problems of the Fall. Likewise, the creation of the woman also solves the problem of man being incomplete and alone.

Knegdo was translated as meet, which means "necessary or suitable," but that is not a very good translation. The word knegdo is better translated as “exact counterpoint.” Just as my right hand is the exact counterpoint to my left hand, woman is the exact counterpoint to man. Sealed together they are completed in the image of God.

This metaphor of the creation of man and woman is powerful in what it teachers us about what the relationship of men and women, especially husbands and wives, should be as we journey through life. We are to be equal partners, walking together in the pursuit of Eternal Life.

(If you want to read more about this it can be found in my book Man, Woman, and Deity.)