The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 23

nnture, a relntion which "the law" gh·cn by God through Moses fil'!lt expreaely revealed. 11. (III.) But the history of creatkin supplies the foundation not only of the rela- tions between God and man, and of eaoh man with every other individual of the human race, but also of tlie socio.I rolationa of the various members of the human fnmily. For there is another peculiarity in the account of man's creation which wo might have overlooked, had not Christ himself in his tP.aching specially directed attention to its force and meaning. 1 When a question was asked him on the subject of mar- riage, he answered, " Have ye not read, that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female?" 2 This expression is not used, it must be observed, in rlescribing the creation of animals. The force of the words is explained in that full description of some parts of the work of creation which is given in the second chapter of Genesis. 3 From this we learn that "Adam wo.s fil'!lt formed, then Eve"; that "the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man: neither was the man created for the womn.n; but the woman for the man": ' from which the apostle Paul infers the authority of man over woman. The description given in Genesis,-whatever thti process may have been which is represented by woman having been formed by God out of man,-explains to us why the words quoted by our Lord have such profound Rignificance. The reality and the force of that relation between the sexes, of which marriage is the expression, could not be taught by volumes of commandments nnd precepts as they are by this mystical but simple history of the creation of man nud woman. Christ confirms the teaching of that history, asserting that this original unity is the basis of the true unity of those whom "God joins together" in mar- riage, so that they two are one flesh. Marriage, it will be observed, is not the sexual union merely, but is represented by God bringing tlu woman to tlte man. 6 Ancl our Lord quotes ns the word of God himself the conclusion drawn," Therefore shall a man !care his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wif~." It follows from nil this argument that marriage, the normal type of which is the indissoluble union of one man with one woman, is the exponent of a relation between the sexes involved in their very origin, and that this ordinance, being antecedent to law, is the basis of all those rights and responsibilities which the Divine law maintains and defines. And it must be further observed, that this ordinance is the source not merely of human life, as indicated by the name given to the first woman, 8 but of human society. Without it there might have been a race of men, as of beasts, birds, and, fishes ; but the family, the wiit of the social system, and thus of national life, could not have been formed. There could have been no civilisation and no progress. To the development cf man 11s a social being marriage is essential, and the more nearly that the primal type of marriage is preserved in any nation, the stronger are all the social ties, and the more progressive is its social system. For from it all the duties, not only of tlie marriage relation itself, but of all other social relations, are derived. The fact that God ordained that mankind should increase and multiply on the earth through a holy union, which he appointed and blessed, determines also foe mutual duties 1md responsibilities of parents and children, which are only limited, as the language of the sacred history indicates, by those which the husband and wifll mutually owe to one a.notl1er, and those which all owe ali':e to God, 12. (IV.) Thus far in the brief history of man'l:! creation and original state, wo 1 ~!att zb:. 4~ ; Mark x. 6. 2 Gen. i. 27; v. 2. ' Gen. ii. 18, 20-24. • l Cor. xi 8, 9; l Tim. ii. 13. 6 Clen. ii 22. It wust be remembered, however, that in one sense the lauuungo of Genesis applies even to unholy unions; 1 Cor. vi 16. • Cl.allvih.  INTRODUOTION •ro TllJ<j PEN·rATEUCH. Ix