God brought all the animals to Adam to name. They came to him “male and female.” Each elephant had it’s sow. Each ram had it’s ewe. Each Lion had it lioness, etc. Mark Twain had a joke where he described Adam coming home to Eve after naming all the animals. Eve looked at an elephant and said, “What did you name that big animal?” Adam replied, “I called it an elephant.” Eve asked, “Why did you call it an elephant?” Adam answered, “Because it looked like an elephant!” That’s a little misleading because all the animals were named before God brought Eve out of Adam’s side. Genesis says, that after Adam had named this animals, male and female, “…for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Adam did his duty but became acutely aware of the fact that he was alone! God said that it wasn’t good for Adam (Man) to be alone so he put Adam into a deathlike sleep. He opened up Adam’s side and took from his “side.” The normal understanding is that God took out a rib and made woman from that. There is even a old wive’s tale that says that this explains why women have one more rib than men have, but that’s not true. We all have the same amount! Guzik says, “We don’t really know exactly what God took from Adam’s side to make Eve, and it doesn’t really matter. Modern research into cloning and genetic replication shows every cell in our body contains the body’s entire genetic blueprint. God took some of Adam’s cells and changed their genetic blueprint in the creation of Eve.”1
After God put Adam into a deathlike trance (sleep?), “..God pierced his side, creating a bloody wound. …God wounded the man and took out of his side the substance with which he created his bride. Then God healed Adam’s wound and awakened him in the garden. And God brought to Adam the bride who fulfilled all his heart with her beauty and purity.”2 We also know the Bride of Christ comes from the wound made in the side of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Gage describes this well, “Now on the cross God brought upon the new Adam the sleep of death. Although Jesus, like Adam, was innocent, nonetheless God wounded him, permitting his side to be pierced by a Roman spear (John 19:34). God took the substance out of the side of Jesus and created a bride for this new Adam, purchased with blood and washed with water. God then healed Jesus of his wound, and awakened him from the sleep of death in a garden (John 20:15), having given life to his bride, who will one day be presented to him in all the beauty and purity of her new creation in a redeemed garden (Rev 21:2). In other words, the narrative of the creation of Eve through the wounding of Adam proclaims the gospel from the foundations of the world, all in the good purposes of God. After suffering a pierced side, Adam was awakened to the glory of his reward, the bride of his heart’s desire.”2
This may seem like a fanciful way of interpretation but remember what Jesus said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 tells us , “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Is it really “stretching it” to see Jesus in all of the Scriptures? Gage continues his argument, “Luke tells us that Jesus ‘opened the Scriptures’ to the disciples and that their hearts ‘burned within them’ on the road (Luke 24:32). There! That’s it! We will know we have arrived at our destination when we come to the place where we believe the Scriptures have opened their very meaning up to us, and that our hearts burn within us as we see that the theme of the Old Testament is about the gospel, that all the Hebrew Scriptures are about our precious Savior, his suffering and glory and his third day triumph over death!”2
1 David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 2:21–22.
2 Warren Austin Gage, Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage, 2011), 8.