Catholic Commentary on Genesis 2

"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

The Garden and the Man

Genesis 2 retells the creation of humanity with an intimacy that chapter 1 does not have. Here the LORD God forms the man from the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. The word used for the LORD, YHWH, the covenant name revealed to Moses at the burning bush, signals that this account is not merely cosmological but relational: the God who creates is the God who enters into relationship, who plants a garden for the man, who walks in the cool of the day. The Catechism calls this the second creation account the more anthropological account, focused on the human vocation within creation rather than the order of creation itself (CCC 337).

The man is placed in the garden to tend and keep it. Work is not a consequence of the Fall; it is part of the original human vocation, the collaboration of the creature with the Creator in the ordering and care of the world. The command that follows is the first commandment in Scripture: you may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. Freedom and limit belong together from the beginning. The gift is vast; the boundary is one.

The First Marriage

It is not good for the man to be alone. God causes a deep sleep to fall on the man and forms the woman from his side. When the man sees her he cries out: this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. The exclamation is the first human speech in the Bible, the first poetry, and it is a cry of recognition and delight. The Catechism presents the original unity of man and woman as the foundation of the theology of marriage: the one-flesh union reflects the communion of persons within the Trinity, a total self-giving that is fruitful and indissoluble by its nature (CCC 1604). That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, the man and woman in the garden are naked and unashamed. This is the state of total transparency and communion before sin introduces concealment. Every human relationship damaged by shame, by hiding, by the inability to be truly known, is damaged by the Fall and awaits the healing that Christ brings. Marriage in particular is called to recover something of Eden: the mutual self-giving that has no need to hide.

Prayer

Lord God, you formed us from the dust and breathed your life into us. You placed us in a garden to tend and keep. You gave us one another for communion and delight. Heal what the Fall has damaged in every human relationship and restore in us the image of the Garden. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

2
The Seventh Day
(Exodus 16:22–30; Hebrews 4:1–11)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work.* 2:2 Cited in Hebrews 4:4
 
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.
Man and Woman in the Garden
 
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD † 2:4 LORD or GOD, with capital letters, represents the proper name of the God of Israel and the one true God, transliterated from the Hebrew as YHWH; here and throughout the Scriptures. God made them.
 
5 Now no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field sprouted; for the LORD God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But springs ‡ 2:6 Or mist welled up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.
 
7 Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.§ 2:7 Or a living soul; cited in 1 Corinthians 15:45
 
8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
 
10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it branched into four headwaters:
 
11 The name of the first river is Pishon; it winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is pure, and bdellium and onyx are found there.
 
13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it winds through the whole land of Cush.
 
14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it runs along the east side of Assyria.
 
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
 
15 Then the LORD God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.
 
16 And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
 
18 The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.”
 
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam * 2:20 Or the man, as in verses 19 and 21 no suitable helper was found.
 
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, He took one of the man’s ribs † 2:21 Or took part of the man’s side; similarly in verse 22 and closed up the area with flesh. 22 And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him. 23 And the man 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.”
 
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.‡ 2:24 LXX and the two will become one flesh; cited in Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7–8, 1 Corinthians 6:16, and Ephesians 5:31
 
25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.

*2:2 2:2 Cited in Hebrews 4:4

†2:4 2:4 LORD or GOD, with capital letters, represents the proper name of the God of Israel and the one true God, transliterated from the Hebrew as YHWH; here and throughout the Scriptures.

‡2:6 2:6 Or mist

§2:7 2:7 Or a living soul; cited in 1 Corinthians 15:45

*2:20 2:20 Or the man, as in verses 19 and 21

†2:21 2:21 Or took part of the man’s side; similarly in verse 22

‡2:24 2:24 LXX and the two will become one flesh; cited in Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7–8, 1 Corinthians 6:16, and Ephesians 5:31

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