Genesis 2:23

Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, etc. - There is a very delicate and expressive meaning in the original which does not appear in our version. When the different genera of creatures were brought to Adam, that he might assign them their proper names, it is probable that they passed in pairs before him, and as they passed received their names. To this circumstance the words in this place seem to refer. Instead of this now is זאת הפאם zoth happaam, we should render more literally this turn, this creature, which now passes or appears before me, is flesh of my flesh, etc. The creatures that had passed already before him were not suitable to him, and therefore it was said, For Adam there was not a help meet found, Genesis 2:20; but when the woman came, formed out of himself, he felt all that attraction which consanguinity could produce, and at the same time saw that she was in her person and in her mind every way suitable to be his companion. See Parkhurst, sub voce.

She shall be called Woman - A literal version of the Hebrew would appear strange, and yet a literal version is the only proper one. איש ish signifies man, and the word used to express what we term woman is the same with a feminine termination, אשה ishshah, and literally means she-man. Most of the ancient versions have felt the force of the term, and have endeavored to express it as literally as possible. The intelligent reader will not regret to see some of them here. The Vulgate Latin renders the Hebrew virago, which is a feminine form of vir, a man. Symmachus uses ανδρις, andris, a female form of ανηρ, aner, a man. Our own term is equally proper when understood. Woman has been defined by many as compounded of wo and man, as if called man's wo because she tempted him to eat the forbidden fruit; but this is no meaning of the original word, nor could it be intended, as the transgression was not then committed. The truth is, our term is a proper and literal translation of the original, and we may thank the discernment of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors for giving it. The Anglo-Saxon word, of which woman is a contraction, means the man with the womb. A very appropriate version of the Hebrew אשה ishshah, rendered by terms which signify she-man, in the versions already specified. Hence we see the propriety of Adam's observation: This creature is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bones; therefore shall she be called Womb-Man, or female man, because she was taken out of man. See Verstegan. Others derive it from the Anglo-Saxon words for man's wife or she-man. Either may be proper, the first seems the most likely.

Whether the primeval man was conscious of the change in himself, and of the work of the Supreme Being while it was going on, or received supernatural information of the event when he awoke, does not appear. But he is perfectly aware of the nature of her who now for the first time appears before his eyes. This is evinced in his speech on beholding her: "This, now" - in contrast with the whole animal creation just before presented to his view, in which he had failed to find a helpmeet for him - "is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh;" whence we perceive that the rib included both bone and flesh. "To this" counterpart of myself "shall be called woman;" the word in the original being a feminine form of "man," to which we have no exact equivalent, though the word "woman" (womb-man, or wife-man), proves our word "man" to have been originally of the common gender. "Because out of a man was she taken;" being taken out of a man, she is human; and being a perfect individual, she is a female man.

2:23 And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones - Probably it was revealed to Adam in a vision, when he was asleep, that this lovely creature, now presented to him, was a piece of himself and was to be his companion, and the wife of his covenant - In token of his acceptance of her, he gave her a name, not peculiar to her, but common to her sex; she shall be called woman, Isha, a She - man, differing from man in sex only, not in nature; made of man, and joined to man.