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Genesis 2:23-25
New Catholic Bible
Genesis 2:23-25
New Catholic Bible
23 The man said,
“This one is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.[a]
She shall be called woman
because she was taken from man.”
24 This is why a man leaves his father and his mother[b] and joins with a wife, and the two become one flesh.
25 Now the man and the woman were naked, but they did not feel any shame.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 2:23 Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: a common Semitic way of expressing consanguinity (Gen 29:14) or membership in the same tribe or even simply in the same people (2 Sam 5:1; 19:13-14) or the same city (Jdg 9:2). Here it means that the woman has the same nature as the man; she alone can make possible the love that characterizes the matrimonial bond. The words she shall be called woman, etc., can be understood only in light of the assonance in the original text: Hebrew, isha, “woman,” seems to be the feminine form of ish, “man” in the sense of “male” (adam refers to man as including both man and woman, i.e., possessing the nature common to all human beings).
- Genesis 2:24 Leaves his father and his mother: instead of remaining under the protective custody of his parents, a man leaves them and, with his wife, establishes a new family unit. Joins . . . one flesh: the divine intention for husband and wife was monogamy. Together they were to form an inseparable union, of which “one flesh” is both a sign and an expression.
