itself. For example, the idea of “rest” appears not only in the creation narrative where God “rests”
on the seventh day, but also in the account of Noah (whose name means “rest”) and in the story
of the conquest of Canaan (where Israel is called to “enter God’s rest”), the story of David (who
will seek to build a temple for God once he has “rest from all his enemies”) and ultimately in the
New Testament where Christ promises “rest” for those who come to him. Additionally, the
Hebrew language does not possess comparatives, such as “good, better, best,” and so it uses
repetition to communicate these emphases. Thus, when the prophet records the angelic praise of
God, the Hebrew song is “Holy, Holy, Holy” because God is most holy. To miss the various
repetitions of key phrases and terms in the narrative is to become deaf to the storyteller’s clues to
understanding the plot.
Out
of all the earth, God puts the man, Adam, into a garden, Eden. The trees of the
garden are “good for food” (Gn 2:9), picking up one of the key refrains repeated in
Genesis 1, that everything God created is “good.” This term reverberates in an unexpected
way when we read the sudden and sharp reversal that it is “not
good that the man should
be alone” (Gn 2:18). After the repetition in Genesis 1 that God’s creation is “good” and
“very good” (Gn 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, 1:31), the expression “not good” signals an
ominous change, in the same way as when a movie’s background music shifts from major
to minor chords. Indeed, this repetition of the word “good” alerts the discerning reader
to a vital way in which the second story builds on the first while developing it in a new
direction.
p 14
Whereas the first story grappled with the problem
of the land being formless
and void, this second story tackles a new challenge, the solitude of man. In an initial
answer to this problem, God presents the animals to Adam. Adam names them but finds
no suitable partner among them. God, of course, knew that Adam would not find a
partner among the animals. But
as a good Father, he teaches his son an important lesson:
while Adam and Eve are made on the sixth day with the animals, they are created in God’s
image and likeness, and they are called to enter into the seventh day and live in covenant
with him.
It will not be among the animals that Adam finds his helpmate. The Hebrew word
ezer, sometimes translated as “helper,” has the sense here of “partner” or “sustainer.”
Unfortunately, this term has been falsely read as suggesting the woman’s
secondary or
servile role. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we find this very term often used
to describe God (see, for example, Ps 30:10; 54:4). The narrative is at pains to show that
the woman is taken from the rib of man, taken from his side and near his heart
as a symbol
of the relationship that is intended by God’s design. Indeed, this interpretation accords
well with Adam’s, for when he sees the woman he says, “This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh” (Gn 2:23).
In the first creation account, God makes man and woman in his image and likeness
(Gn 1:26–27), endowing each with equal dignity. Now, in the
second creation account,
we “zoom in” to learn something further about the meaning of “image and likeness”: at
its core is the call to relationship. In God’s words in Genesis 1:26, “Let
us make”
(emphasis added), the plural “us” is a first hint that there is a plurality of divine persons
in God. In other words, in the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), there is a
communion of persons who exist in an eternal communion of love. As John Paul II has
said, “God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since he has in himself
fatherhood, sonship, and the
essence of the family, which is love.”
3
For man to be made in the image of the Trinitarian God, he too must be set in a
communion of love. Thus, God creates man and woman, equal in dignity,
p 15
complementary in relation, and each called to make a gift of themselves for the other, in
imitation of God himself. In their relationship, man and woman reflect
the very life of
God, a full understanding of which will be manifested only when Christ comes and
reveals the Trinity. The Garden of Eden turns out to be a honeymoon suite; marriage
marks the high point of creation. All now seems well, as the “not good” is resolved in a
wonderful “unity of the two.” What could possibly go wrong?
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