Genesis 2:21-22

2:21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, ¹  and while he was asleep, ²  he took part of the man’s side ³  and closed up the place with flesh. ⁴  2:22 Then the Lord God made ⁵  a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:1

2:1 The heavens and the earth ⁶  were completed with everything that was in them. ⁷ 

Genesis 2:13

2:13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it runs through ⁸  the entire land of Cush. ⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man.”

² tn Heb “and he slept.” In the sequence the verb may be subordinated to the following verb to indicate a temporal clause (“while…”).

³ tn Traditionally translated “rib,” the Hebrew word actually means “side.” The Hebrew text reads, “and he took one from his sides,” which could be rendered “part of his sides.” That idea may fit better the explanation by the man that the woman is his flesh and bone.

⁴ tn Heb “closed up the flesh under it.”

⁵ tn The Hebrew verb is בָּנָה (banah, “to make, to build, to construct”). The text states that the Lord God built the rib into a woman. Again, the passage gives no indication of precisely how this was done.

⁶ tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.

⁷ tn Heb “and all the host of them.” Here the “host” refers to all the entities and creatures that God created to populate the world.

⁸ tn Heb “it is that which goes around.”

⁹ sn Cush. In the Bible the Hebrew word כּוּשׁ (kush, “Kush”) often refers to Ethiopia (so KJV, CEV), but here it must refer to a region in Mesopotamia, the area of the later Cassite dynasty of Babylon. See Gen 10:8 as well as E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB), 20.