Bad Love (Again)

The man 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.”  Genesis 2:23  NASB 1995

Now – The verse that just doesn’t quit!  We have come back to it over and over, discovering more depth each time.  We already noticed that “the man” (ha-Adam) alters his own identity in the presence of the woman.  He calls himself ish, not adam, because of the ishshah.  Now we notice the word happa’am (translated as “now” in the NASB but as “at last” in the ESV).  It is an interesting word.

There are numerous expressions for “time” in which paʿam is one of the elements. For example, “This is ‘at last’ (happaʿam) bone of my bones” (Gen 2:23). “And I will speak ‘but this once’ ” (ʾak-happaʿam) (Gen 18:32). “ ‘Now this time’ (ʿattâ happaʿam) will my husband be joined to me” (Gen 29:34). “ ‘Many times’ (pĕʿāmîm rabbôt) he delivered them” (Ps 106:43).  Hebrew paʿam is a blend of Ugaritic pʾm “time” and pʿn (Phoenician pʿm) “foot” (Gordon, UT[1]19: nos. 1998, 2076).^[2]

Perhaps we need to meditate upon both linguistic origins.  Perhaps the man says more than “now.”  Do you suppose that this linguistic construction hints at the foundational relationship, the “foot” of every other human relationship including our relationship with God?

Jonathan Sacks makes a crucial point:

It is no accident that the Bible takes marriage as its central metaphor for the relationship between man and God.  For Judaism, religious faith is not mysterious.  It needs no sacrifice of the mind, no leap into the void.  It is precisely like the gesture of commitment I make in a human relationship when I pledge myself to another, whose body I can see but whose consciousness must always be beyond my reach.  My capacity to form relationships tells me that though I can never enter someone else’s mind, I can reach out beyond the self and, joining my life to an other, create the things that exist only in virtue of being shared: trust, friendship and love.  So, though I can never enter the consciousness of God, I can still pledge myself to Him in faithfulness, listening to His voice as it is recorded in the Torah and responding to His affirmation of my personhood.  Together we bring into being what neither God-without-man nor man-without-God could create: a society of free persons respecting one another’s freedom.  Marriage is the binding relationship with otherness that brings new life into being and allows us to experience the covenantal dimension of the world.  Until we can relate to another human being through covenant—the word given and received and honoured in faithfulness—we cannot relate to God that way either.[3]

If Sacks is right, then marriage is the most important and most critical relationship I will ever experience.  We might even suggest that it is more fundamental than my relationship with YHVH because “without the trust we learn as children and practice as marriage partners we could not respond to the trustfulness of the universe, which is the experience of reality under the sovereignty of God.”[4]

Carefully consider these insights.  First, marriage is voluntary covenantal commitment, but it is not optional.   Why? Because without it I can never learn the role of trust and consequently, I can never learn to trust God.  This is why the actions of parents in the marriage are crucially important for the child’s relationship with God.  Battered, bruised and broken marriages, even without divorce, significantly alter a child’s ability to trust God.  The universe is no longer a place of safety and care.  The sins of the fathers have traumatic consequences.  This means that marriages that are not places of mutual, voluntary pledges of freedom are actually idolatrous.  They erect a god in the image of power and control, even if that “god” is nothing more than the dominant assertions of one of the partners.

Secondly, since marriage is the foundational relationship, my ability to honor and trust God is a direct consequence of what I practice and experience in marriage.  This is true for the partners as well as the children.  How I treat my partner, and how I am treated by my partner, directly affects my treatment and experience of God.  I understand grace because I have experienced grace in the arms of another.  I understand faith because I have given and received faithfulness with my partner.  I understand love because I have been loved.  And, of course, the opposite is just as true and certain.  Damage to grace, faith, and love begins in the home.  The baggage we bring to the river crossing are suitcases that were packed by our parents’ behavior.  The sins of the fathers are inside, wrapped in feelings.

Topical Index:  marriage, now, happa’am, at last, covenant, Genesis 2:23

[1] UT C.H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook, 1965 (Grammar cited by chapter and section; texts cited by chap (16) and no. of line. Glossary cited by chap (19) and no. of word)

^[2] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 1793 פָּעַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (730).

[3] Jonathan Sacks, Radical Then Radical Now, p. 86.

[4] Ibid.