Sisters, I want to ask you a question I have been asking myself for years. What if Eve is not only a symbol of the bride but also a type of Christ?

Most of us, men and women alike, were taught a thinner version of Eve. She was the helper. She was the one who fell. She was the wife who handed her husband the fruit. I taught it that way for a long time because that is what the King James Bible and tradition gave me. But Genesis 2 was not written in English. It was written in Hebrew, and the Hebrew tells a different story.

There are three Hebrew words that change the picture. When you put them back where the translators softened them, the first woman, Eve, stands in a position of glory that we have rarely preached and that women have rarely heard.

I want to walk you through three things hidden in Genesis 2:

1. The word banah (bah NAH)
2. The phrase ezer kenegdo,
3. The body God built when He created Eve.

Banah

"And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." Genesis 2:22.

Read it quickly, and you might assume God shaped Eve as He formed Adam from the dust. But Moses used a more specific word. The Hebrew is banah. B-N-H.

Banah is the architectural verb. It is the word used when Solomon builds the temple of the Lord. It is also used for the altar, the ark of the covenant, and the holy furnishings of the sanctuary. It’s striking that the first time this verb appears in all of scripture is not in the construction of a building. It is in the construction of a woman. Before God ever uses temple language for a temple, He uses it for Eve.

So, when Genesis says God made Eve, the Hebrew actually says God built her. The English "made" makes her sound as if she were shaped from clay. The Hebrew banah indicates she was constructed as a sanctuary. The word carries three overtones in the original:

1. Beauty
2. Stability
3. Durability. She was built to last.

Sisters, look at this carefully. Christ is called the temple of God. In John 2, He says, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Paul tells the Corinthians that their bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost.

And the very first woman, before there was a tabernacle, before there was Solomon's temple, before there was a single covenant or sacrifice, was already built using the architectural language of the temple itself. The first temple in the scriptural record is not made of stone. It is a woman.

"And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Genesis 2:18.

That phrase, "an help meet," is one of the most softened translations in the King James Bible. "Help meet" sounds like an assistant, a wife who helps her husband, a kind of domestic support staff. That’s not what the Hebrew says.

It is two words in Hebrew: ezer kenegdo.

Let us start with ezer. The word appears twenty-one times in the Hebrew scriptures. Of those twenty-one occurrences, sixteen refer to God. Not to a woman, not to a wife, and not to any human helper, but to God. Ezer is the word the Psalmist uses when he cries, "From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD."

It is the word Moses uses when he names his second son Eliezer, meaning "the God of my father was my ezer, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh."

It is the word in Psalm 33: "Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our ezer and our shield."

It is military rescue language. It is the cry of someone in danger, calling on the only one strong enough to save them.

That is the title God gives Eve.

Now, the second word: kenegdo. The translators rendered it "meet for him," which in Old English meant "fitting for him." But the Hebrew is more precise. Kenegdo means "corresponding to him," equal to him and opposite him, like two halves of one face. It does not put her below him. It places her standing in front of him, his mirror and counterpart. Equal and opposite.

This Hebrew structure should sound familiar. Lehi taught Jacob that there must needs be an opposition in all things. The sweet requires the bitter. The counterpart is what makes the thing real. The opposition here is structural, not moral.

Kenegdo is that doctrine written into the body of a woman. Eve is not standing behind Adam, supporting him. She is standing in front of him, the necessary opposite that makes his existence whole and his salvation possible.

So put the two words together. Ezer kenegdo. A rescuer, equal and opposite. The strength that delivers, standing face-to-face. That is what God called Eve when He gave her to Adam. Not a helper in the kitchen. A rescuer at the gate.

Do you see what this means? The same Hebrew word God uses for Himself when He saves His people is used for the woman when He saves the man. Eve is given the divine title. The office she holds in Eden is the office Christ holds in eternity.

This is why Adam needed her. Not because he was lonely, but because he could not be saved alone. He needed an ezer, a rescuer, and the only being in all creation who could fill that office at his side was a woman built for the purpose.

Heart, Womb, Veil

So, Eve is built with the language of the temple and named with the title of God. But there is a third thing the Hebrew reveals to us, and it is the most intimate of the three. It is what God put inside the temple when He built her. It is the atoning organ.

Sisters, you are probably not used to thinking of yourselves anatomically in a Sunday lesson, but stay with me. What does Christ atone with? He atones with His heart. In Gethsemane, He bleeds from every pore. On the cross, when the Roman soldier pierces His side, John tells us that blood and water flow out. The Atonement is performed through a bleeding heart, its membrane rupturing and releasing blood and water for the life of the world.

Now look at what God built into the woman. The womb is structurally nearly a mirror of the heart. Both are pear-shaped. Both are the strongest muscles in their respective regions of the body. Both hang by ligaments within a body cavity. Both receive seed.

Alma describes the word planted in the heart, and if it is good, it begins to swell. The same is true of the womb. Both organs swell when life is conceived within them, and both bring forth that life through repeated, rhythmic, and painful contractions.

The heart pumps blood to nourish the body; the placenta in the womb pumps blood to nourish the unborn child. Both are surrounded by a watery membrane sac. The Bible has a name for that membrane. It is called a caul. The pericardial sac around the heart is the caul of Hosea 13:8. The amniotic sac around the unborn child is the caul a midwife sees at every birth. Same name, same architecture, two bodies.

When Christ atones, He bleeds from a heart within a caul, and water and blood pour out for the life of the world. When a woman gives birth, she bleeds from a womb within a caul, and water and blood pour out for the life of a child. The scripture writes one pattern in two bodies. Christ saves through the architecture God built into Eve.

There is one more piece, and this is where the temple and the woman become one image. Inside the temple, between the holy place and the Holy of Holies, hangs the veil. When Christ died on the cross, Matthew tells us that the veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom.

After Christ passed through the veil, the path to Exaltation was opened. The Son has gone before, and the work of returning to the Father's presence is now possible.

Now consider the woman. The veil women wear in the temple symbolizes the temple veil among other things. It conceals what is set apart for holiness. It covers an enclosed garden. And in childbirth, a veil inside her body is rent from top to bottom so a new life can pass through. Every mother who has delivered a child has lived out, in her own flesh, the rending of the temple veil.

Christ rent the veil so that we could be born again. Eve and her daughters rend the veil so that we can be born at all. One mortal birth and one immortal birth, both performed through the same architecture, both costing blood, and both opening a way that did not exist before the rending.

Conclusion

Sisters, the Fall of Adam, long taught in the Church, presents Adam as the type of Christ and Eve as the type of the bride. The doctrine is true, but it is also incomplete. Adam is a type of Christ in his sinless choice to enter mortality for those he loves. Eve is a type of Christ in her body, in her name, and in the office that God gave her in Eden. Both are true at the same time, and scripture refuses to choose between them.

When the world tells you that womanhood is a softer, secondary, or supportive calling, you can hold three Hebrew words against the noise.

1. Banah says you were built as a temple.
2. Ezer kenegdo says you were named with God's own word for rescuer.
3. The architecture of your body says you carry the same blueprint Christ used to save the world.
4. Heart, womb, caul, and veil. Blood and water.
5. A holy place opened by a rending.

The Atonement did not begin in Gethsemane. It was prefigured in Eden, in the body of a woman. Every time a woman bleeds to bring forth life, every time a mother passes a child through her own veil, and every time a daughter of Eve stands face-to-face with someone in need of rescue, the pattern Christ would later perfect on the cross is lived out in her flesh.

Christ is the great ezer.

So is Eve.

So are you.

References

Sources

• Nielsen, Donna B. Beloved Bridegroom. Source for the heart-and-womb parallels and the symbolism of the veil.
• Charles, John D. Endowed From On High: Understanding the Symbols of the Endowment. Source for the symbolism of passing through the veil.
• Freedman, R. David. "Woman, A Power Equal to Man." Biblical Archaeology Review 9:1 (January/February 1983). Foundational scholarly argument that ezer kenegdo should be rendered "a power equal to him," not "a help meet."
• Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton, 2004. Hebrew translation notes on Genesis 2:18 and 2:22.
• Himmer, Richard P. The Fall of Adam Comparison Chart. November 2007.

Scripture

• Genesis 2:18 — ezer kenegdo: "I will make him an help meet for him."
• Genesis 2:22 — banah: "the rib... made He a woman."
• Exodus 18:4 — Moses names his second son Eliezer ("the God of my father was mine help").
• Deuteronomy 33:26, 29 — God as the ezer of Jeshurun.
• Psalm 33:20 — "Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield."
• Psalm 121:1–2 — "From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD."
• Hosea 13:8 — the caul of the heart.
• Matthew 27:51 — the veil of the temple rent in twain.
• John 2:19–21 — "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
• John 19:34 — blood and water flow from the Savior's side.
• 1 Corinthians 3:16–17; 6:19 — the body as a temple of the Holy Ghost.
• Alma 32:28 — the word planted in the heart, swelling within the breast.
• Ether 4:15 — "rend that veil of unbelief."

Disclaimer

This material is not an official Church publication and does not represent the doctrines, policies, or teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All views expressed are the author's alone. Readers should consult official Church resources for authoritative guidance. The author and publisher disclaim liability for reliance on this material.