Genesis 1:27, “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created He them.

Genesis 2:18, “And the Lord God said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.

Ever notice that everything God created He declared that it was good.  But he did not declare man to be good until he created a woman to be his help meet.  Note it says help meet, not help mate.  The word in Hebrew is ‘azar (helper) kenegedo (one before or one who helps to see or understand). In other words a woman was created to stand before a man to help him see or understand God. The word good in Hebrew is tov which means to be in harmony with something or someone.

God saw that man was not in harmony with him so he created a woman who could help him see and understand God so as to bring man into harmony with him.  That might explain why women seem to outnumber men in churches and it is usually the woman who encourages the family spiritually. In fact the Talmud teaches that because a woman would be so busy raising her children that she will not be able to spend the time in study of the Word of God like a man so God gave women an extra measure of spiritual insight that a man does not have.  So if we men are not diligent in our study of the Word of God guess who will outrank us.

The Talmud also teaches that a Godly man and a Godly woman will produce a Godly household with Godly children.  A Godly woman married to a Godless man will still produce a Godly household and Godly children but a Godly man with a Godless woman will have a Godless household and Godless children.  I know, that is not always the case but the Talmud was trying to make a point by speaking in general terms, a woman was created to be a Godly influence on a man and her family.  The key way this is done is that man cannot know the love of God so God gave him another human being, made in the image of God created from the side (the word in Hebrew is tsela which generally expresses the side rather than a rib) of man. This would be someone that he could love and in that love relationship, in that caring, nurturing and intimacy with another human being called a woman a man would be able to understand what the love of God is all about.

It is for this reason the Bible talks of us being a bride of Christ. The Song of Solomon uses the love between a man and woman to describe the love of God and the Book of Hosea uses the infidelity of a woman and the heartbreak of a man over that unfaithfulness to show God’s heartbreak over our infidelity to Him.

I was reading something very interesting in the Midrash, something that you will not learn in a traditional Hebrew class taught in a Christian context.  We Christians tend to be very one dimension in our study of Biblical languages.  Not the Jews, however, they will do all sorts of back flips, twist, and turns with the Hebrew and crack open some real deep insights into from Word of God that we would never see in our limited approach to the Classical Hebrew.

In the Midrash I read where the rabbis looked at those words in Genesis male and female or man and woman.  They noted that the word for man is ‘ish AlephYod Shin and the word for woman is ‘ishah spelled Aleph Shin Hei.  Now if you remove the Yod from man and the Hei from woman you leave the words Aleph Shin and Aleph Shin which means fire and fire.  What was removed was the Yod and the Hei which spell the name of God. Man and woman do not have God in their names, but bring man and woman together you have the letters for the name of God. With man and woman God is in their midst.  Without the letters Yod in man and Hei in woman, in other words, without God in the midst of man and woman you have fire and fire and we all know how destructive that can be.

Both have the letter Aleph  in their names so God can reside in man without woman and woman without man but they cannot form the name of God which explains who and what God is and thus man and woman alone cannot completely understand God, that is understand what the love of God is all about.

Any wonder why marriage and families are under attack today by the enemy.  Any wonder why the enemy wants to pervert marriage and sexual relationships. If is no wonder why the enemy wants to create pornography and why it is such a threat to our relationship with God.  How can we really know and  understand the loving relationship we have with God in such a context?