What Does Genesis 2:21 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew צֵלָע (tsēlāʿ, side/rib) lets the “rib” carry the wider image of a side being taken from the body.
THE MEANING
You are shown a body changing beyond its own awareness: Adam sleeps while God takes from his side. Flesh closes over the place of taking, and the next verse shows the taken side becoming a woman.
THE ROOT
צֵלָע
tsēlāʿ
GROWS FROM
צלע
Side, flank; the side of a structure.
The Hebrew word translated “rib” can also name a side or flank. The same word family describes sides and side chambers in structures, connecting bodily form with the larger shape of a side.
ALSO GROWS
tsēlāʿ: Side, flank, or rib.
צֵלָע
This is the word used for the part taken from Adam, holding the bodily and broader sense of “side” together.
tsĕlāʿôt: Sides or side chambers.
צְלָעוֹת
This plural form is used for structural sides, showing that the word can describe the side of a body and the side of a structure.
וַיִּסְגֹּר
vayisgōr
GROWS FROM
סגר
Close, shut, enclose.
“closed up” in this verse is vayisgōr. The taking has a physical boundary: God closes flesh over the place from which the side is taken. The root holds the action of closing and the resulting closure in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
sāgar: To close or shut.
סָגַר
This is the action described as God closes the flesh.
sāgūr: Closed or shut.
סָגוּר
This form names the state that follows the closing, keeping the verse’s act and result connected.
תַּרְדֵּמָה
tardēmāh
GROWS FROM
רדם
Sleep deeply; fall into profound sleep.
This is a deep sleep caused to fall over Adam before the taking begins. The root keeps his unawareness inside the scene: the body’s change happens while his awareness is suspended.
ALSO GROWS
tardēmāh: Deep sleep.
תַּרְדֵּמָה
This noun names the state that falls over Adam before the taking.
nirdām: Deeply asleep; one who has fallen asleep.
נִרְדָּם
This related form describes a person in deep sleep, extending the same root’s sense from the state itself to the sleeper.
THE PATTERN
A body can be formed in hiddenness beyond the awareness of the one being formed.
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.THE THREAD
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.Genesis 2:22 repeats צֵלָע (tsēlāʿ, side/rib) for what God takes here and what he makes into the woman. The repeated word keeps the body’s side present in the account of her making.
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