This post was originally written in December 2016, though several edits have been made since. To navigate up to the Genesis index, see index-genesis.
15 And Yahweh God took the human and set him in the orchard of Eden to work and watch over it. 16 And Yahweh God commanded the human, Of all the trees of the orchard you are free to eat. 17 But of the tree of the of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat, because on the day you eat of it you will die.
you will die. It is a strange feature of this story that the very first command God gives the human comes with a threat which, as we will learn, God does not actually carry out when his command is breached. Instead of being killed, the human is banished from the orchard. According to Genesis, he lived 930 years, a bafflingly long life, rather than being struck dead on the day he eats the fruit.
18 And Yahweh God said, It is not good for the human to be alone. I will make for him a help, as his counterpart. 19 So Yahweh God formed out of the ground every wild animals, and every bird of the sky, and brought them each to the human, to see what he would call it. And whatever the human called a living being, that was its name.
as his counterpart: or possibly, suitable for him. I do not feel certain about how exactly to translate kngdw. Translations that use the word ‘suitable’ or something similar include NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB, and KJV. Those using ‘corresponding to’ or something along those lines include Holman, NET, YLT, and Darby.
20 And the human named all the livestock, and all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals, but for the man himself there was found no helper to be his counterpart.
An interpreter who takes a low view of Yahweh could read this as a failure: God tries and fails to make the human a companion (at first). A higher view of Yahweh would see here a divine showmanship, as Yahweh deliberately parades before Adam a series of creatures unsuitable to be his mate, working his way towards the culmination of the creation story with the creation of a woman.
21 Then Yahweh God dropped upon the human a heavy slumber, and he fell asleep. He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 And Yahweh God built the rib which he had taken from the human into a woman, and he brought her to the human. 23 And the human said, This at last is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh. This will be called woman, because she was taken from man.
24 This is why a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the human and his wife, and unashamed.
24. clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. Sexual relations between a man and his wife are explained as a sort of ‘putting back to together’ of the division which created man and woman. More broadly, the institution of marriage is explained as a consequence of the original purpose of the primeval couple.