And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
- KJV And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
- NKJV Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
- NASB And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
- NLT Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God makes a woman from the man's rib and brings her to him. The first marriage is established as God's own design and gift.
Overview
God fashions the woman from the man's rib and personally presents her to him, acting as the giver and the one who joins them together. This shows that marriage originates in God's gracious design rather than human invention. The intimacy of being made from the man's own body grounds the deep unity of husband and wife celebrated in the next verses.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- 1 Cor 11:8–9For man did not come from woman, but woman from man.
- 1 Tim 2:13For Adam was formed first, and then Eve.
- Heb 13:4Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
- Prov 18:22He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.
- Prov 19:14Houses and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.
- Ps 127:1A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
- Gen 2:19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Lay
The single best free starting point for Genesis 1–11 — clear, visual, and faithful to the literary design.
Pastoral
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Commentaries & study tools
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The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 2:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.