God’s Word for You
Genesis 2:22 God built a woman
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, August 31, 2026
22 Then the LORD God built a woman from the rib he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man.
Moses has been using various words to describe the way God brought about the world and the things in it: created, formed, made. Now he uses a new word, banah, and there is just no getting around the fact that this word means “to build.” Noah “built” an altar to Lord (Genesis 8:20), as did Moses (Exodus 24:4), and other people built cities (Judges 1:26). But there is no sense in making nonsense of this building; there is no allegory to be found in the creation of the woman, as if a woman who is bearing children is naturally wider below, as the Medieval theologians like Nicholas of Lyra were inclined to say. Here there is not really a special or particular meaning except that God made the woman in a different way from the oceans, the land, the trees, the birds and animals, and even different from the man.
In more than one place, Luther refers to this verb, “build,” and uses it to show that God builds families through mothers. “By this richer word,” he writes, “he wanted to indicate that a woman is God’s building in a domestic sense, because all of Scripture employs this way of speaking about women” (Lectures on Genesis 31:42, LW 6:71). In Exodus 1:21, God rewards the Hebrew midwives and “built their houses” by giving them families of their own. And Rachel asks her husband to take her servant as a concubine “to see if I may perhaps build my family from her” (Genesis 30:3). “For a woman,” Luther continues, “has been especially created for this purpose that a house may be built up in her, that children and posterity may be born.”
This was God’s perfect design for creation, but ever since the fall, some women cannot have children, or have had to see their little ones die very young, or even in the womb. This is tragic, and certainly comes as a result of sin in the world, although not any particular sin of the women in question. For Jesus says when questioned about a man who was born blind, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (that is, to bring on this trouble or this cross), “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). For many Jews and others in the Scriptures showed that they believed that all suffering is brought on by certain special sins (Job 22:4-5; Luke 13:2-5). But some suffering comes on account of my neighbor’s error (Exodus 21:29), or because there is simply sin in the world (Exodus 21:28). And so God may bless the childless woman or the grieving widow with many other blessings, and bring help and joy through them or others to many people who otherwise would cry out for help (Psalm 30:2, 31:22, 113:9).
God himself brought the woman to the man, just as God had brought the many animals before the man. With the animals, no suitable helper was found. But now! Now the man’s eyes opened and he saw what had been missing. No living creature had been found like Adam with whom he could have company, friendship, familiarity, or build a family. But God built Eve to be Adam’s helper, and brought her to him (“like the father of the bride,” as one commentor said). Professor Gerhard moves from this to another point: “In the same way, because among all the created physical things there was nothing alike to God with which God might be able to initiate a fellowship and familiarity, he created man to be someone he could love and make a partaker of his blessedness, and by whom in turn he be would be acknowledged, praised, and loved” (Commonplace XI, “On the Image of God in Man before the Fall” §39). And to this he adds a proof text: “It is my pleasure (says Wisdom, which is Christ) to be with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:31).
And to this we happily add the Lord’s invitation: “Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD” (Proverbs 8:34-35). And don’t these words remind us of a similar verse? “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22). Thank the Lord for all of the ways he shows his favor, especially in a spouse, children, godly work, home, church, faith, and the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.