Cherchez la femme. Wherever there is signal blessing, you will always find the woman.
When Adam named the animal creation, it exposed to his own heart that he was missing something. The variety and scope of God’s astounding handiwork only accentuated his own need for a help suitable for him. Yet in order to provide that “help meet” the Lord did a remarkable thing. He did not make woman by an independent act. Instead He performed the first surgery, removing something from Adam’s own body. The piece He removed was a rib from the man’s breastplate, making his heart more vulnerable, more accessible. Never again would Adam be complete unless his bride was with him because she had some of his life within her.
The crowning glory of God’s fair creation was given three names. Adam called her Woman or “out of man” (Hebrew Isha to his Ish). This emphasized her means of life. Though her life came from God, the Source of all life, it came through Adam. So it was to be that she would look to her husband as he was to look to God.
But her husband’s trustworthiness was linked to two acts on his part: to “leave” his own family to start another, and to “cleave” only to his wife—giving her the first place of loyalty of any earthly relationships.
At first look, it seems a tenuous arrangement for the woman. What if her husband fails her? Sarah is given as an example of that very case (1 Pet. 3:5-6). Abram failed his wife—but God did not fail her. Even when the husband abandons—whether physically, emotionally, or geographically—his wife, God will be a Father to the fatherless and a Husband to the husbandless.
When Abram failed Sarah in Egypt, the Lord came to her aid. Years later, He would bring plagues on Egypt to deliver perhaps two million Jews; on this occasion He brought plagues upon them to rescue one woman.
But Woman was not the only name given to God’s fair creation. We read that God “called their name Adam, in the day that they were created” (Gen. 5:2). The word adam or adom is linked with several ideas. It is used for the color red and for the earth or dust from which man was made. The names of Esau and Edom find their roots in Adam. Of course we all find our roots in Adam. As Paul writes: “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven…and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:47, 49). The first man and woman shared a common name because they shared a common nature, as do we all.
This name of hers emphasized her unity of life with all the race that would come after her. There would be one happy exception. Called “the seed of the woman,” He would partake of our humanity without being tainted by our sin. As Kinsman, His genealogy would stretch back to Adam (Lk. 3:38) but as Redeemer, He would be virgin born. In this special conception and birth would be found the fullest expression of the truth: “She shall be saved in childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15).
Woman’s third name was given to her by her husband after the Fall. It is a name rich with promise, emphasizing the continuity of life. By an act of faith he called her Chavah, or Eve, because, said Adam, “she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). But was she not the mother of the dying? God had just pronounced the curse, concluding with the words, “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Yet Adam saw in his wife a hope undiminished by the seemingly impossible plight of the human race.
This optimism is not unfounded. Our God is not the God of the dead but of the living. And down history’s long corridor from then until now you will find the fragrant memories of a multitude of women whom the Lord has used to bring hope in the midst of despair, revival in the face of failure, joy to sweeten sorrow, and resolute confidence in God when the men are sinking under the load. Salute these intrepid women of faith as they pass before your gaze: the daughters of Zelophehad, Achsah, Hannah, Abigail, Rizpah, Huldah, Ruth, Esther, the women who loved Jesus (discussed in this issue), and on to Anne of Austria, Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael and thousands more. I know a little about such women. I’ve lived with one for 28 years.