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One of a Kind. The Creation of Woman is unique, likewise with Man, the Couple, the Spirit, Yahveh, Elohim.
One of a kind. Woman as a created being is unique, just like all the other aspects to do with God.
One of a kind is the description not only of the creation of the woman but of the woman herself. This uniqueness is a vital point God impregnates on the mind of Adam. To be always remembered. Have we forgotten?
(Origin of Woman, chapter 2.2)
In the three verses, Genesis 2:17-19 of the Bible narrative, the author abruptly changes subjects THREE times. Why, what’s the common denominator that glues this heterogeneity together? Here’s the clue; to save humankind from sure death, we need a woman who is unique. Let’s talk about this uniqueness.
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
In Genesis 1:24, following the creation of the animals, on the sixth day, God saw, that it was good. In Genesis 1:31, after the creation of man in His own image, male and female, also on the sixth day, God beholds, it was very good. Yet, in Genesis 2:18 Yahveh Elohim (Lord God) states it is NOT good. The identical Hebrew word, tov (H2896), is used in these three contexts. Putting these three events in sequential order reveals the following.
Yahveh created the animals, that was good. Then Yahveh first created man alone; that was NOT good. Finally, Yahveh created the woman, and then it was VERY good. ONLY the couple, man and woman, together are VERY good. Separately, they are good BUT incomplete. To be VERY good, the man needs a help meet for him. Meet is an old English term meaning suitable, appropriate, or fitting. We are going to see that Yahveh makes the man a mate who is tailor-made, custom-fashioned physically, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually.
Before this exquisite creation, Yahveh has the man do a specific exercise to teach him a lesson about the magnificent and superb partner he was about to receive. Without her, the man was not good enough.
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
This strange exercise is interjected before the creation of the woman. Two verses out of a narrative of 7 verses for such a banal episode appears disproportionate. There’s a foremost reason for this.
Firstly, Adam does the naming of the animals. In Gen. 1:5,8,10, God named: day, night, heaven, earth, seas. Now, God gives this prerogative of naming to the man. The responsibility of naming is also part of the injunction to have dominion and subdue the Earth (Gen. 1:28); we continue to name our houses, boats, pets, dolls, and fossils. The importance of naming is the fifth key to mastering Biblical Hebrew because names are not merely dog tags for ID.
Names identify the characteristics and character of living beings. In the Bible, the Biblical Hebrew expresses the personality, mentality, and heart of an individual. A person doesn’t get any name; a name finds a person. Later the man (Biblical Hebrew: ish) names the woman (isha). The man’s name naturally gives rise to the woman’s name; just as the man gave rise to the woman. You’ve noticed that it’s the man who does the naming, he was on the scene first. We’ll see why he has the prerogative of naming.
Secondly, when the scripture says, “there was not found…” it’s NOT talking about a two-legged, upright, being that could walk, talk and have sex, or who could be mistreated and used as a submissive instrument. It’s referring to a help meet who would be physically, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually identical and compatible with the man. I’ll show you that help meet means all of those distinctive characteristics.
God had the man perform this naming ceremony because He wanted this realization to sink into Adam’s mind; the animals have nothing in common with humankind. A profound truth that Adam would never forget. Remember, masculine (zachar H2145), in Biblical Hebrew, also means, remember; this is a self-evident truth God wanted and wants men and humanity to understand. In the 21st century, we’ve forgotten this truth; that’s the story of Audit of the Universe.
Naming, Identifying and Designating Uniqueness
This naming is to contrast the creation of animals while focusing the man’s attention on the uniqueness of his help meet, his partner, the woman. Verse 9 is a bit ambiguous. It says God formed the animals and brought them to Adam. Well, the animals were created earlier on the sixth day BEFORE the creation of Adam. Verse 9 indicates the opposite; this is the kind of anomaly discreditors want to get into, which is not my intention.
God could’ve taken the animals He ALREADY had created and brought them to Adam. Or, I think it possible that God MAY have formed animals right in front of Adam to reinforce the one of a kind help meet He was going to create for the man. One way or another, don’t get side-tracked by chronological trivia; the key here is the woman is a unique custom-made specimen.
The uniqueness of the woman is capital to the rest of the Bible story, as we can gather from these two verses. I want to stay with this puzzle piece to elaborate its contours and we’ll see how it fits perfectly into the entire puzzle. Here’s the principle: Everything about the woman and everything related to the woman is one of a kind.
God has never ceased to remind humankind so that we REMEMBER. When it comes to God and His Creation, whether it is the Universe, Earth, Man, Woman or Animals, it is all Unique. This concept of uniqueness, concerning God and His Creation, is so vital that He makes Adam perform this first do-and-tell example, naming the animals, in the Bible.
One of a kind is a recurring theme in the Bible. God, Himself is Absolute. When God established His unique nation, Isreal, He told them, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:44). There is only ONE Lord; this flies in the face of “as long as you’re worshipping “god,” that’s fine.” Humankind doesn’t get to decide who God is and how to revere Him. Here’s another poignant example to underscore how one of a kind Yahveh is. Elijah was a prophet of God who also performed a do-and-tell example to reinforce the uniqueness of God.
24 And call you [the false prophets] on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
25 And Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
The false prophets prayed to their multitude of gods, and nothing happened. Elijah prayed to his single God, and the sacrifice on his alter was immediately consumed by fire. “And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God” (verse 39). Elijah identified and designated the One Single Lord.
This one of a kind principle is clearly stated and corroborated in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul tells the Church in Ephesus.
4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
One is mentioned seven times in these three verses. Each of these seven elements is one of a kind. There’s something severely wrong with religions and oecumenism; that is comparable to the cacophony of the gods of the false prophets above. Elijah demonstrated, or rather, God did, that He is the One and only.
A little further on in Ephesians 5:31-32 Paul adds the signification of ONE man joined to ONE woman. “… a man … shall be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” The ONE husband joined to the ONE wife represent the ONE Christ joined to the ONE church. This ONE couple with their children represents the ONE Elohim family.
I realize if you’re hearing this for the first time, it’s a mouthful. Remember, “man is made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27 ) That man includes the woman and children. The couple, the husband and wife union, is the image of Christ and the Church. As the couple engenders and gives birth to human children, so does the Christ-Church union engender and give birth to God’s spiritual children.
Adam, without Eve, is the same as Christ without the Church. Like the cornerstone (1 Peter 2:6, Ephesians 2:20 read these passages at UnlockBibleMeaning.com) without all the other stones that form the spiritual building (1 Peter 2:5). Like a Brother without any other brothers and sisters, which doesn’t make any sense. You can NOT have one without the other. You have to understand the complementary roles of each! Which we will see. Each is UNIQUE, but each is NOT a STAND-ALONE. The two stand together.
A final thought about the one of a kind woman, the unique creation, especially the particular sequential diverse events in Genesis 2:17-19. Here’s why. The two partial verses below are only excerpts to focus on the point at hand; the chronological events in this Genesis context. I’ll explain the other aspects of these verses in Timothy a little later.
14 … the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing …
The transgression of the woman is the equivalent of the “surely die” (Gen. 2.17). Immediately followed by a woman’s unique (Gen. 2:19-20) capacity to bear children, namely, the Savior, Christ, through Whom, the woman and all her descendants can be saved by “freely eating” of the Tree of Eternal Life. The sequences of both Genesis 2 and 1 Timothy 2 summarize the whole Plan of God; the creation and redemption of humankind.
The six “one of a kind” players of the cast presented in Genesis 1 and 2 (man, woman, couple-family, Yahveh-Christ, Church, Elohim) play out the strangest scenario in verses Gen. 2:21-24 that explain the entire Plan of God; this is so much more than just the creation of woman. It certainly includes that, but the entirety of the Gospel is present in this short narrative.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 2.2 of the book Origin of Woman.
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