What Does Genesis 2:23 Mean?
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for out of man she was taken.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for bone, עֶצֶם (ʿetsem), can also mean the very self, so this line names the woman as shared substance.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks in recognition of shared human substance: the woman is “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” The name אִשָּׁה (ishah, “woman”) echoes אִישׁ (ish, “man”), holding her distinction together with her origin in the same human life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that difference means unrelatedness: distinct persons can still share one human substance.
THE ROOT
עֶצֶם
ʿetsem
GROWS FROM
עצם
The root עָצַם (ʿatsam) carries the sense of strength or might; עֶצֶם (ʿetsem) names bone, the body’s firm structure, and can also mean the self or the very substance.
The word עֶצֶם (ʿetsem, “bone”) can also mean “self” or “the very thing itself,” so “bone of my bones” carries the sense of one’s own substance. The sound-link between אִשָּׁה (ishah, “woman”) and אִישׁ (ish, “man”) adds a layer of relation in the verse; it is wordplay here, while עצם (ʿatsam, “strength”) is the root being traced.
ALSO GROWS
ʿatsamai: my bones
עֲצָמַי
This form appears in the verse itself, making shared bones the language of shared human substance.
ʿatsum: mighty, powerful
עָצוּם
The same root extends from bone’s firmness to strength and might.
ʿatsmo: himself, itself
עַצְמוֹ
This form preserves the sense of self, illuminating how “bone of my bones” can express one’s very own substance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names deep kinship through shared embodied substance.
And Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. And he settled with him for a month.For we are limbs of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.THE THREAD
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.The Hebrew noun בָּשָׂר (basar, “flesh”) names shared substance here and returns in “one flesh” there. The thread moves from recognizing “flesh of my flesh” to a bond described as one flesh.
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