Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Genesis 2:18-24 (ESV)
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.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
This week we will follow up yesterday’s teaching about “The Valiant Woman” with a look at some of the most important Bible passages about women. It all starts with the creation of Eve, the first woman. Look closely at God’s plan in verse 2:18. The woman brings good to the man, a good he can’t get on his own (see Proverbs 31:12). She is a ‘helper.’ This word is actually much stronger in the original Hebrew; it is the same word used for ‘military reinforcements.’ The phrase ‘fit for him’ actually means “like/opposite.” This means the woman is one who understands the man, who is like the man, but who is also his opposite, standing against him when he needs to be corrected. It is like “iron sharpening iron” (Proverbs 27:17). In verse 23, when the man first sees the woman, he exclaims “This at last!” an expression which is even more exuberant and joyful in the original language.