Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #19 of Genesis, chapter 2 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 2:21-23:

And JEHOVAH 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 JEHOVAH God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 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.

In our last study, we were looking at the word translated as “deep sleep” and we saw how God uses that same Hebrew word in 1Samuel, chapter 26. It is interesting how we have gone back to this chapter a couple times now as we have followed words God used in Genesis, chapter 2.

Again, I just want to point this out before we move on. David and Abishai went into Saul’s camp at night and the Lord had caused a “deep sleep” to fall on Saul and Abner and those that were with them. They went into the camp and Abishai wanted to smite Saul to the earth with his spear and kill him, but David prevented him because Saul was the Lord’s anointed. However, they did take Saul’s spear and his cruse of water and then they called out to Abner from afar. This is the part I want to go over. It says in 1Samuel 26:13-14:

Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of an hill afar off; a great space being between them: And David cried to the people, and to Abner…

Then David cried that the thing that Abner did was “not good” and this was what we looked at when we came to this passage earlier because God had said it was “not good” for the man to be alone. When David said to Abner that the thing he had done was “not good” and Abner was “worthy to die,” we saw how the words “not good” relates to being “worthy to die.” That fit the spiritual picture God established for the man when He said it was “not good” for the man to be alone. It tied into the Lord Jesus Christ who became sin for His people that would form his bride, the woman, so Christ was worthy to die at that point.

But now we want to look at how David stood on the other side on top of a hill far off with a great space between them. Remember, on the other side of this great space were Saul and Abner and everyone that had experienced a “deep sleep” from JEHOVAH. We saw that “deep sleep” points to spiritual death.

There is a separation. David and his men are on the other side and Saul and his men are down below, with a great space in between them. We want to see how this fits with Luke 16 about the rich man that died and went to “hell” or the grave. It says that Lazarus also died and went into Abraham’s bosom, a picture of heaven. Then it says of the rich man, in Luke 16:23:

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

It is just like David was afar off from Saul and his camp. Then it goes on to say in Luke 16:24-26:

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Here, there is a great space or gulf and it is fixed. No one can pass from one side to the other. That is the difference from this historical account in 1Samuel, chapter 26. There is a great space between and David is far off from Saul, but they are able to pass over. It says in 1Samuel 26:22:

And David answered and said, Behold the king's spear! and let one of the young men come over and fetch it.

So, David and his men would depart and one of the king’s young men would come to where David had been and fetch the king’s spear. This means that they could come from thence or from one side to the other and the reason for this is because it is describing God’s judgment on the churches. The deep sleep was the spiritual judgement that came upon the congregations, but there was still the possibility during the Great Tribulation period for an individual person to come out of the congregation and to experience God’s salvation outside of the churches. Anyone in the churches could have come out. Of course, outside of the churches God was saving the great multitude over about the last 17 years of the Great Tribulation period. In this historical account in 1Samuel God took that into consideration and allowed for one to come from “thence to here,” but in Luke 16 the gulf is fixed; we cannot go to them and they cannot come to us. That points to the final judgment that took place after the end of the Great Tribulation when Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011.

I wanted to point this out because it is a very interesting historical parable that God has given, but let us go back to Genesis 2:21:

And JEHOVAH God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept…

Where it says, “and he slept,” the word “slept” is a different Hebrew word. It is also used in Psalm 13:3:

Consider and hear me, O JEHOVAH my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;

Here is a verse that really carries the idea that “sleep” and “death” are related and that is the spiritual picture God is illustrating in Genesis 2, verse 21 by causing Adam to enter into a deep sleep and he slept – it is as if he died.

In the New Testament it says concerning Lazarus, in John 11:11-14:

These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

In these few short verses there are about three different words used for “sleep” and each one of them ties in with the spiritual picture that “sleep” relates to “death.” In the Bible if God is causing someone to sleep, it can often relate to death and it does in regard to Adam because he is a figure of Him that was to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept. It is as if God caused Christ to die and He died. That is the spiritual picture that this language reveals. Then it goes on to say in the second part of Genesis 2:21:

…and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

So while Adam was in this deep sleep, God performed a type of surgery. God took one of his ribs and since it says that He closed up the flesh, He must have opened up the flesh in order to take the rib. Then He closed up the flesh thereof and He used the rib to make a woman and brought her unto the man. What a way to make a woman. What a way to make a creature. It is extremely unusual. In all of God’s creation He created the creatures out of the ground, as it had said in Genesis 2:19:

And out of the ground JEHOVAH God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air…

Even the fowl of the air were not created out of the air, but they were created out of the ground. What about Adam? Remember it said back in Genesis 2:7:

And JEHOVAH God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Everything else had been formed out of the ground, but God goes into this complicated process to create Eve. I mean, it is surgery. He gives anesthesia, as it were, to the man and He puts him to sleep. Then He takes a rib and closes it up. It is almost a picture of a surgery. God did all these things, but all He had to do was to create her like He had created all the other animals. Obviously, He made both male and female of the other creatures from the ground, whether they were ducks or elephants or whatever creature He made. He made them both male and female. In other words, there would have been no difficulty for God to create the woman just as He had created the man. When He formed Adam from the dust of the ground, God could have made Eve in the same manner, but He did not. He did all these things and the only reason has to be for spiritual purposes. God did things this way in the formation of the woman in order to paint a spiritual picture. It is the only explanation that makes sense.

We realize that God called Adam a figure of the one to come and we see the language of God causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and we know that the Bible relates sleep to death. We know that Christ died and through His death came the “woman,” the bride of Christ. Through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ all those that God had determined to save became saved and God speaks of them as His wife, His bride. It was the “woman” that was formed as a result of Christ dying for their sins and that is the overall picture God describes in Genesis, chapter 2. He is going into detail. In the second part of Genesis 2, verse 21 God goes into careful detail telling us how He formed the woman. It says in Genesis 2:21:

And JEHOVAH 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…

The word “rib” used in verse 21 and verse 22 is an interesting word. It is only translated as “rib” in these two verses. In every other place it is translated as “side,” “side chamber,” “beam,” “board” or “plank,” but here it is translated as “rib.” We do not have difficulty in understanding what the “rib” represents because the rib is turned into a woman. God took the rib from the man Adam and He made the woman, so the “rib” becomes a woman through the miraculous process of God’s creation. We understand the “rib” to represent the body of believers, the elect.

But let us read the second part again because there is something strange that does not seem to make sense when we read it: “and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.” When I read that, I thought it seemed odd. It does not sound right, does it? He adds the words “instead” and “thereof.” It seems awkward. What does that mean? We would ask, “Instead of what?” Mr. Camping used to say that when there were awkward statements in the Bible, it was like a sign post that hailed the reader to check it out more closely and to take a more thorough look at the language.

In the Jay Green’s Interlinear Bible they also recognized this language was awkward. It does not sound right in an English sentence, so they tried to correct it. I will read the literal translation from the Interlinear: “And JEHOVAH God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh underneath.”

The word translated as “instead” is a word that has been translated in other places as “from under,” so this is not actually a bad translation and they had some justification in translating it using the word “underneath.” Where is a man’s ribs? It is below the arm and it is, in a sense, underneath. That seems to make a better sentence, does it not? “He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh underneath.”

But the only problem is that in smoothing out the sentence we lose the Gospel meaning that God was trying to illustrate. This is a good verse for us to really see that these modern Bible versions are not good. I am not faulting Jay Green. He was trying to give a literal translation and he did not do what many modern English translations do, but this is just an example of the problem that occurs when people try to smooth out the language of the Bible. The King James Version is the best English translation because it preserves many of these awkward statements. It preserves the Old English and the manner in which God’s original words were spoken and it often does not sound quite right to our ears. However, there is a reason for it and the reason is that God wrote it that way. The problem with the NIV and NAS and these other versions is that they try to assist the reader in the English language and they change things to modern language and they straighten out these verses so they are much easier to read. We could read those Bibles and it is lot more understandable to the modern “ear,” but in doing so they lose a lot of the spiritual meaning.

That is the case with our verse if we were to translate it as “underneath” rather than “instead,” but we must not do that. God very purposefully used this word that is translated as “instead.” This Hebrew word is Strong’s #8478 in the concordance and it is a word that often points to “substitution” and that is how we understand that word in English – it is “instead” or a “substitute” for something. For instance, after Cain slew Abel, it said in Genesis 4:25:

And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

So the seed is not Abel, but instead of Abel the seed is now Seth.

There are some better examples of how this word is used and we will take a look at them in our next Bible study in Genesis, chapter 2. In order to see the direction we are heading, you may want to look up the following words. Look up the word “rib” and look up the word translated as “closed up.” It is also an interesting word. It is the same word used in Genesis, chapter 7 where God shut Noah and his family and the animals in the ark. Also, look up the word “instead” and the word “flesh.” I think if you will look up these words, you should begin to see the spiritual picture that God develops. In our next study we will look at each one of these words and we will see how God gives the Gospel in these early verse in the Book of Genesis. Right from the beginning God had it all worked out because, of course, Christ was already the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.