day no. 14,118: men, mud and marriage

Genesis 2:18-23

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

All the Lord has made from the ground could not be found fit to help Adam. Only that which God made from him, that which shared his nature down to the bone, was sufficient to help and to complement him. While man was made out of the ground, woman was made out of man. Man had a relationship to the ground before he had a relationship with her. That from which he was formed held a particular place in his personhood. He was to work and keep, to conquer and cultivate the world. But not by himself. So woman was made from man and bears a particular relation to that from which she was formed. She was to help and to complete her husband.