The Creation of Woman

By Nancy Walton Castilleja
Before we get into how, when and why woman was created, let’s look at what did not happen. Because of what we may have learned previously about woman’s creation, we need to reorganize some information to put it in the right order. I think everyone is familiar enough with the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to remember that they ate from the forbidden tree, right? This was the first disobedience to God and therefore, the introduction of sin into the world of mankind. If you are wondering why we are starting at this point, it is because the condition of woman with sin present is the most familiar. As I said before, we need to sort things out. We need to know this in order to identify God’s original purpose for woman before sin.

Let’s pick up reading at the conversation between God, the woman and the serpent after the disobedience. Genesis 3:13-16 “And the LORD God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

The Hebrew word used for enmity is, 'eybah. The definition of this in the Hebrew is: hostility. It comes from a Hebrew root word that means to hate (as one of an opposite tribe or party); hence to be hostile:--be an enemy. Remember God said to the serpent or Satan, “…I will put enmity between thee and the woman…”. I’m sure we all know that Satan is our enemy, but did you know that God put into place an extra hostility, or war, between Satan and the woman? What do you think about that? Keep this in mind for now. We will discuss this further at another time.

The woman was given two types of punishments for her sin. She is
condemned to:
1. a state of sorrow, and
2. a state of subjection.
Proper punishments for a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure( ≠ sorrow) and her pride (≠ subjection). Her punishments put her in the opposite conditions of the ones that allowed her sin. She is put into a state of subjection. Notice that subjection, the husband’s rule, came after sin and as a punishment for sin. This is the one change due to sin that so many seem to ignore! I have heard countless preachers say that the husband should rule over his wife and she should gracefully accept it. Their reasoning behind this, so they say, is that God set the original marriage up that way. This could not be further from the truth! Read verse 16 again. God says here, here after sin that the husband is to rule over the wife. This is when it was first instituted, not in the original union of husband and wife! God would not put something in place as a punishment if it already existed at creation. Now you see that when God set the husband to rule, He put it into place as a punishment to the wife. God did not originally intend for marriage to be a union of two unequal partners! We are to become one. Now, with that being said, let’s go back to the creation to verify the equality of man and woman. Take note here that equality does not mean identical. Equality: the quality of being the same in quantity, measure, value, or status; equally balanced; sameness. Identical: exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different; a duplicate; indistinguishable. Man and woman were created equal but not identical.

Let’s read Genesis 1:26-31 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29 ¶ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 ¶ And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Look over this text and tell me what blessings and authority was given to the man………..How about to the woman?........... That’s right! They were blessed together and commanded to rule together!
Did you read where God gave either one authority over the other? No, you did not. This was the unity of God’s creation. Together, they were one.

Another thing that some like to suppose is that “creation order” somehow denotes authority. We were not created first. We were not even created second. The heavens and the earth were created first, then the plant life. Next came fish and fowl. Fifth were the creatures of the earth. Sixth was the human species. Now some like to look at the order of creation and say that because one was created before the other it somehow gives them a special status. Have you ever heard this? Do you know what they are referring to? It’s about the man and the woman. But why do they not notice that the animals were created before mankind? Does this make the animals above mankind? No, it does not. Ecc. 3:19-20 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. 20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

Mankind did not have dominion over every creature because of creation order. Mankind had dominion over the creatures because God spoke and gave it to them. If it were already in place, God would not have had to order it! Gen. 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” So, also, the male did not have authority over the female at creation. Creation order did not determine authority. The authority over the female was given to the husband as a punishment for sin. If it were already in place, God would not have given it as punishment. Therefore, it did not exist in the original marriage established by God. The original marriage did not include one person as the ruler over the other!

So let’s get this clear. God did not create women to be under men’s rule! God put in place the husband ruling the wife as punishment after sin, not at creation. Woman was not created to give man someone to lead around nor was she created for his pleasure! Let’s continue our search for purpose.

The next question you all have is, “What about her being his helper?” We can read about this in Genesis chapter two where more detail is given. Notice, though, that we are first told about God creating mankind in His image and likeness. Then, it is told that mankind was made male and female. At that point, we hear the blessings and commands given to them as one. Later, after this we are given more detail. This detail doesn’t address our equality, but our differences! The male and female were created with different physical appearances, obviously. But, they were also created with different functions so they would accomplish God’s plan together. Think of this as a baseball team. If every one was a pitcher, who would catch the ball out in the field? Who would run the bases?
The team performs successfully when each person contributes a talent of their own.

Now, let’s read and see if we can spot their different functions. Genesis 2:7-9 and 15-18 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8 ¶ And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 ¶ And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him an help meet for him.”

In these verses we see what the functions or purposes of the male and female were, individually, before their union. The union of the male and female is called “marriage”. Marriage is the oneness of a man and a woman. This biblical definition is what some people are trying to change today. We won’t get into that! That’s another study! We see in verse fifteen what the man’s individual responsibility was to be. 15, “God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” In order to understand exactly what this means, we would need to look at the meaning of the words in the original language. Since tonight we are studying the woman and not so much the man, we are not going to define verse fifteen. I just wanted to point out to you that the man did have his functions separately from the woman in addition to their commands as one.

Now, we will examine why God created the woman. We read in verse eighteen that God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Why do you think God would say this? Everything that God had created so far was good. The man had everything he needed in the garden. I’m sure it was beautiful and delicious. It is never said that the man was lonely. How could he have been lonely when he had God to talk with? Wouldn’t that have been wonderfully enough? I don’t think that God created the woman just so the man would have someone to talk to. The man was not lonely! To find out we will back up only one verse and read verse 17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Notice it was at that point God first said something was “not good”. So far, everything was not only good, but very good. That is, up until the man is told not to do something! Immediately after this, God says that the man should not be alone and also would be provided a helper. How do you suppose the woman was going to help the man? Was she going to do his laundry? No, they had no clothes! Maybe she was going to cook and do the dishes. No, there were no kitchens yet! I know! She was going to clean his house! No, no, and no! Well then, how was she going to be his helper?

Okay, as I mentioned before, let’s define the original Hebrew words used for “help meet”. rze wdgnk, “ezer kenegdo” Kenegdo signifies one like, or as himself, standing before him. And this implies that the woman was to be a perfect resemblance of the man, possessing neither inferiority nor superiority, but being in all things like and equal to himself. This is easily understood being that she was created from the same body. She was in fact bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Ezer comes from the Hebrew root word azar meaning, to surround, that is to say to protect or aid. So we can see that God said he would make the man another human on the same level that would surround him with a protecting help. This other person was the woman. Do you recall that God said man needed a helper immediately after he gave a command not to do something? This was going to require obedience? God knew Satan was there along with a third of the angels that were fallen angels. He knew the man was now going to need help with fighting off Satan; someone who would always be at hand. This was the purpose of the woman. Yes, this is why we were created. To be man’s helper in his spiritual walk. Remember, in this original perfect creation of marriage between man and woman, no one was given rule or authority over the other! They were to stand side by side ruling the earth together. God had a plan! God said it was not good for man to be alone. He also says that two are stronger than one! We can now say with confidence that the woman was created for spiritual strength!

Let’s read some verses that reveal some benefits of having two, instead of one. Matthew 18:19-20 “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Also read Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”

The woman was given a spiritual responsibility. Before their commands as one, the man was to “dress and keep” the garden (or home). The woman was to help the man in the obedience to God and in resisting Satan’s inevitable temptations. As we all know, she failed in her responsibility. Her punishment was to live with sorrow and to have her husband rule over her. She would also have increased pain with childbirth and in spite of this elevated pain, she would continue to desire her husband!

Don’t let Satan hide your purpose with the confusion he institutes! Satan knows there is enmity between himself and women. He knows that just as he used woman to try to destroy God’s new creations, God will use a woman to destroy him! Satan wants to keep some kind a separation between husbands and wives, any kind even if it is the unbalance of equality in the home. Keeping a wedge between husbands and wives is so important to Satan that he even uses some churches to accomplish this. I hope you will all take the good news of tonight’s study with you. That good news is that you were created with spiritual strength! We do have a responsibility to be a help to our husbands as God intended. God created you with a plan. His plan is ongoing and you are a big part of it!

I don’t want to leave you in a bad spot, but time won’t allow us to continue. Next month we will learn of the responsibilities of the husband and wife inside the home. Following that, we will study the restoration that Jesus brought to mankind while we focus in on what this means to us as women!