Marriage

Last week the hubby and I watched a new movie that I saw out at the Family Christian Bookstore: What If.... The movie resembled The Family Man and It's a Wonderful Life in plot. A wealthy business man is visited by an angel, and is shown what life would have been like for him had he stayed with his old girlfriend and gone into seminary like he had planned before getting an internship with a Fortune 500 type company. Predictable, but adorable too.

What struck be about the movie, was actually something that happened while the man and his "wife" (this was during his "what if..." moment where God showed him what he could have had)were meeting with a young engaged couple for marriage preparation. While he was rather rude about the whole thing (which surprisingly helped the young couple realize they had a lot of changes coming their way, his wife read soemthing aloud from the Bible. Genesis 2:21-24. Now, we all know the verses. God causes Adam to go into a deep sleep and God removes the rib from Adam's side and forms woman out of that rib, and gives the woman to Adam. Then it goes on to explain why woman is called woman, for she was taken out of man. Followed by the very popular verse

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh

.

The Jewish Orthodox Bible actually uses the phrase "shall cleave unto his wife." Which I find explains the actual physical act they Bible speaks of here. For in quite a few circles of Jewish belief (at least according to my Judaic Studies professor in college), the act of sex between man and wife, and the two becoming one flesh, creates the image of God. This upsets a lot of people at first because God is our Heavenly FATHER not our heavenly MOTHER. Yet, many of the traditional Jewish phrases for God are not masculine. There are quite a few that actually have a feminine root, describing feminine attributes to God. There is the masculine powerful God that we think of when we think of smiting and the fire and brimstone style of preaching. Then there is the forgiving and loving God that supports us when we need Him. That is always there and always loves us no matter what mistakes we make.

My friend and I were discussing this, and she was telling me that in her Biblical Hebrew lessons, they learned that the word we always translate into "rib" does not really mean what we now think of. It is not referring to a bone from the rib cage! My Jewish Orthodox Bible translation says the following:

And Heshem Elohim caused a tardemah (deep sleep) to full upon the adam, and he slept; and He took one of his tzalelot (sides, ribs), and closed up to the basar in the place thereof

. The phrase can mean more than just rib but rather SIDE. As in the feminine side of man was removed and Adam was given the gift of his feminine side in human form as woman.

So when God saw that Adam alone He knew it was notgood. God was not alone in creation as we learn in John 1:1 for "in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God." So God brougth Adam all the animals in creation, and none of them fit the needs for Adam. So enter the deep sleep and the removing of his side. The side that now has become a person. So that the two shall become one, because they once were one.

The fact that God brought her to Adam and presented her to him, shows that God meant for women to be a gift to man. We are to be gifts to our husbands!! Isn't that just such a wonderful feeling! We are a gift to them! To be warm and loving and kind. To be a gentler reminder that while God has much righteous anger, He also has a softer, loving side. When we are married, we may have our individual interests and talents, but we are now one unit. Think a bout it in modern terms. If you want to invite a person to your wedding, you must also invite their spouse (if they are married) because the two are a package deal. It would be an insult to invite only half! It's why we have songs about finding our other halves! It's becuse we really are only half of the whole! And women are to be gifts to our husbands. But this doesn't mean we should just expect them to cherish us for no reason.

A good wife is a gift and a pleasure to her husband. We see this in Proverbs 31:10, when the Bible tell us:

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies.

The passage goes on to discuss what makes her virtuous and capable. But if we behave the way Proverbs 31 tells us, then maybe we would really be far more precious than rubies, and thus be worthy of being gifts to our husbands. The gifts we were to be when God presented the first woman to the first man.

I feel this was a bit of a jumble, and may come back to edit this at a later time depending on how I feel when i re read it in a few days.