Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation

by Martin Luther

The expression HAPAAM, "now," "in this instance," or "at length," is by no means useless or superfluous as it may at first seem. That very word in this sentence, uttered by Adam, most beautifully expresses the glad surprise and exulting joy of a noble spirit which had been seeking this delightful meet companion of life and of bed; a companionship full, not only of love, but of holiness. As if Adam had said, I have seen all beasts; I have considered all the females among them given to them of God for the multiplication and preservation of their kind, but all these are nothing to me! This female however is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She is at length what and all I want. With her I desire to live, and with her to obey the will of God in the propagation of a posterity. This is the kind of overflowing feeling of joy and love which this particular word "HAPAAM," used by Adam, is intended to express.

Now however this true purity, innocence and holiness are lost. There still remains indeed a feeling of joy and affection in the intended husband toward his spouse; but it is impure and corrupt, on account of sin. The affection of Adam however was most pure, most holy and most grateful to God, when under the excess of it, he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." She is not made of stone, nor of wood, nor of a lump of earth, as I was. She is nearer to me than all this, for she is made of my own very bones and very flesh.

V. 23b. She shall be called Woman (man-formed), because she was taken out of Man.

As Adam knew by the Holy Spirit the things just mentioned, which he saw not before, and as he praises God and extols him for his having created for him a meet life-companion out of his own body; so now, by the same Spirit, he prophesies of his Eve's future, when he says that she ought to be called a man-formed or man-like female (virago). The truth is, that it is utterly impossible for any interpreter to convey through any other language the peculiar strength and beauty of the original Hebrew expression. ISCH signifies a man,—and Adam says concerning Eve, "She shall be called ISCHA," as if we should say, She shall be called vira, from vir, a man. Because a wife is an heroic or man-like woman; for she does man-like things, and performs man-like duties.

This name Adam gives to the woman contains in it a wonderful and sweet description of marriage, in which, as the lawyers express it, "The woman shines in the rays of her husband." For whatever the husband possesses, is possessed and held by the wife also. And not only is all their wealth possessed by them in common, but their children also, their food, their bed, and their habitation. Their wishes are also equal. So that the husband differs from the wife in no other thing than in sex. In every other respect, the woman is really a man. For whatsoever the man possesses in their house, the woman possesses also; and what the man is, that also is the woman; she differs from the man in sex only. In a word the woman, as Paul remarks in his instructions to Timothy, is man-formed and man-like by her very origin; for, as the apostle says to Timothy, Adam was first formed, then Eve from the man, and not the man from the woman, 1 Tim. 2:13.

Of this communion of all things in marriage, we still possess some feeble remnants, though miserable indeed they be when compared with what they were in their original state. For even now the wife, if she be but an honorable, modest and godly woman, participates in all the cares, wishes, desires, pursuits, duties and actions of her husband. And it was for this end indeed that she was created "in the beginning;" and for this end was called virago, that she might differ in sex only from the father of the family, since she was taken from man.

And though this name can apply in its strictest and fullest sense to Eve only, who, alone of all women, was created thus out of man, yet our Lord applies the whole sentence of Adam to all wives when he says that man and wife are one flesh, Math. 19:5, 6. Although therefore thy wife be not made of thy flesh and thy bones; yet, because she is thy wife, she is as much the mistress of thy house, as thou art the master thereof, except that by the law of God, which was brought in after the fall the woman is made subject to the man. That is the woman's punishment, as are many other troubles also which come short of the glories of paradise, concerning which glories the sacred text before us gives us so much information. For Moses is not here speaking of the miserable life which all married people now live; but concerning the life of innocency, in which, had that innocency continued, the government of the man and of the woman would have been equal and the same.

Hence it is that Adam gave the name, "woman," ISCHA, or "man-formed female," virago or vira, to Eve, prophetically on account of the equal administration of all things with her husband in the house. But now the sweat of the brow rests upon the man. And to the wife it is commanded that she be in subjection to the man. There still remain however certain remnants or dregs as it were of the woman's dominion. So that the wife may still be called man-like female, on account of her common possession of all things with her husband.

V. 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.

Christ in Math. 19:5 and Paul in 1 Cor. 6:16, apply these words of Adam, as a common rule or law for our marriages since the loss of original innocence. If therefore Adam had remained in his original state of innocency, the children born unto him would have married; and leaving the table and dwelling place of their parents, and living no longer with them, would have had their own trees under which they would have lived separate from their parents. They would have come from time to time to their father Adam, sung a hymn, spoken gloriously of God, called upon him, and then returned to their own houses.