Meditate upon God's express design for the "female"
How many of the pictures below are visual definitions to the Hebrew word of “female”? The answer and more to meditate upon for the word “female” will be towards the end of this blog. But first, how many images do you pick, just one, two out of the 3, or all 3?
Image 1 is a visual of perforate. Image 2 is a visual image for the “curse”. Image 3 is a visual image for hollowing out.
The gender discussion is not going away. Over the last couple of weeks, I have continued to read posts, overhear conversations about it, and engage in discussions about it myself. Because times are calling for it, more than ever, we should be able to graciously engage in these discussions and reveal a Holy and perfect Designer who, from the beginning, had separate and express intent for male and female. Of course, not everyone will follow God’s logic and truth, but we who call him God need to understand ourselves what we believe and where God reveals distinct design. The more we understand, the better we know Him, the more we fall in love with Him.
Genesis 1:26a-27- 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness … So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Note first, the reference to the Trinity here. God calls himself “Us” and “Our”, revealing immediately He was plural in nature, yet distinctly One God.
Also note, starting from the beginning, man was also one… that became plural of two (male and female).
God created him. Who? Adam. Who was in Adam? Eve.
Genesis 2:21-22 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Instead of picking up another heap of dust from the ground to make Eve, God took Eve FROM Adam, fashioning him from Adam’s side. Eve was not a separate design from dust as all else of creation was from Adam. Eve was originally inside of Adam. God took from the side chamber of Adam and cells of Adam to create Eve. He punctured Adam and created a hole in his side, taking something from him. God intended to create a complementary image bearer of himself through Eve, Adam’s help mate and support.
There is a lot to meditate on right there. If Adam had everything God needed to make Eve within him, what part of God’s image was divided out from Adam? What was pulled from Adam and was now residing in Eve? What did Eve not have in her because she was an extension of Adam’s side? How was God’s image now divided between the two humans? God reveals in the very beginning of human creation that His image was shared between Adam and Eve, yet complete only when utterly dependent upon God himself, Ephesians 5:21.
If you are married, think about the unique differences between you and your spouse. If you have opposite gender siblings, do you see gender qualifying differences? Physiological, mental, emotional, spiritual?
Those differences were meant to be tied to dependence upon God for proper functioning and prospering. Yes there are image bearing differences between male and female right at the beginning of God’s story. The creation account is meant to help us begin to see a theme in scripture of separate beings, but unified relationship. It helps us understand the Trinity and the very unique characteristics with specific purpose and expressions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This separate but unified identity should stir us to stay within the specific tasks and purposes God intended when He made male and female. The Trinity works in harmony by surrendering to assigned purpose and consistently acknowledging dependence on one another for their decisions and actions (Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:22, John 14:10, John 14:15-17, John 14:28, John 15:1-2, John 16:13-15).
But I digress on that topic, because mostly this blog is about God’s surprising pictures and design of the “female”.
I looked up “female” in a resource I received this week. The resource was the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. The purpose of the book is to organize Hebrew words by root stems and to list all of the words that are derived from that root. Words derived from the “parent” root are child roots, and those child roots have definitions related to the definition of the parent. As human children bear images of their human parents, Hebrew child root words bear images of their parent roots.
These visual definitions from biblical word studies often bring fascinating revelation of Christ, the Gospel, Supernatural life, and fallen nature.
Now back to the images above for “female”.
Which images did you pick that help define “female”? The correct images to choose are all 3! For the word “female” the visual images above of perforated, curse, and hollowed out are all definitions that come from the parent root from which the word “female” comes. But the best image is the 3rd one, the one of being hollowed out. Surprising?
Lets take perforated first. The Hebrew word for female is H5347, neqebah. In Brown-Driver-Briggs, the word “perforata” is listed in parenthesis next to the entry for female. I saw this and got confused. What does perforation have to do with being female? It made me look to the parent root. The word “female” has a parent word of “pierce” as with holes, as perforate means. Say again?
So slowing down a bit, I went to the parent root of female to discover how holes help define “female”. It is the Hebrew word #5344 and is the word “pierce”. Hmmmm. It is defined in Brown-Driver-Briggs as a verb and noun. It means to bore through, creating a hole, depth, spring of water, perforate, pierce, scrutinize, sagacity, leader, chief (one who scrutinizes). Brown-Driver-Briggs also has “pierce” as a noun with a technical term of a jeweler who creates a setting for a stone to be put in place.
Once you read the parent definitions, do you start to see how a female’s purpose and design takes shape? Who did God bore through, creating a hole in him to create Eve? He pierced Adam.
Do females have a cavity that God bore within them so that they can uniquely by gender carry a child? Is female anatomy distinguished from male with an entry that must be penetrated by a male for procreation? This is the 3rd picture above and the one that puts best context around the unique female design.
My own thoughts also went to relating other aspects of the “pierce” definition above to female descriptives. Does she uniquely release water during the birthing process? Does she have a spring of tears more so than her male counterpart? Females often do seem to have an innate ability for mental discernment, i.e. sagacity (woman’s intuition). I have seen females have a unique ability to drill others and bore into others with scrutinizing questions. Females leaders often have good judgment and it helps their husband, children, and many others.
There is another definition from the parent word that I didn’t list above and that is “curse” which is represented in the image of bitten apple above. Through the first female, the curse was put in motion, i.e. flesh separation from God for both Adam and Eve and all humanity after (Genesis 3:6).
Not excluding males, but if we think of the flesh nature of females, we can do some damage with our ability to pierce others using words, bore into and hammer to death, curse others, judge wrongly, and be overly emotional as a frequent fountain of tears, etc.
Did you know the word”hammer” comes directly off the word “female”. It is Hebrew word #4718, maqqebeth. (On a side note this made me think of Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth. She was a hammer that pierced with words, she cursed herself and others, she killed, and she enticed the base nature of her husband.)
We can see two sides of truth in the parent root of the word “female”. In the parent root “pierce” there is a flesh and spirit definition.
God planned redemption always for Eve, for her flesh female nature. In His goodness, He did not want to leave her in a curse, but wanted to create a new fountain of supernatural life within.
Galatians 3:13- Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”
Take some time to assess your female nature. Ask God to show you what aspects of your nature he wants to redeem. For me, God has taken many years to break my self-sufficiency and “soften” the nature built in the career world. Let the master jeweler form his beauty in you. He calls you “beautiful”, music to a woman’s ears, Song of Songs 1:15.
Christ your Heavenly Father and heavenly husband, let himself be pierced with many holes. Christ, let out blood and water from his side that you be bathed and cleansed from that flow of His life. He entered the depths… of sin and darkness. Christ draws up for every Eve who calls on his name, a Heavenly supply of supernatural water, i.e. the Holy Spirit. Christ wants to become the Compassionate Scrutinizer within you, to read you and keep you and guard you and renew your mind. Christ, your leader. Christ, your chief. Christ, your wisdom. Christ your supernatural discernment. Christ, the Heavenly jeweler carving you as a precious stone to be on display to reveal His glory. Let go and let him pierce your depths and draw up eternal springs of life and Spirit and love and wholeness!
Woman of God, be blessed to know Christ more intimately and to be transformed daily into his intended design, embracing your expressly female qualities, as a child of His that he treasures, a vessel of His beauty and glory.
