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chosen, and of Judah, the family of David, and so on unto the birth of Christ at
Bethlehem. We are however conscious that in thus stating the case, we have narrowed
our survey down to One, namely Christ, whereas it is perfectly clear from Scripture that
the seed of Abraham was to be multiplied as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea
shore. We must return accordingly to Gen. 3:, where the great prophecy concerning the
Seed of the Woman is recorded and consider it closely.
It is however impossible to hope to arrive at any clear understanding of the import of
Gen. 3: 15 if we do not see its relation with the surrounding context. We must go back
at least to Gen. 2: 18-20 where we read that the animals were caused to pass before
Adam who named them all, yet, adds the passage "for Adam there was not found an
help meet for him". Common and uncritical usage has introduced into our language the
word "helpmeet" which first being improperly hyphenated, then became taken to mean
"help-mate". This however does not fully express the truth intended. True, the wife is a
help-mate, but the intention of Gen. 2: 18 goes deeper. The Hebrew reads ezer "help",
ki "as", and neged "the front part, the front of a thing next to the speaker, before, in the
presence of, over against" (Gesenius).
The LXX translates these words, once by kat'auton "according to him", and homoios
auto "like to himself". Here it is insisted that the principle already enunciated "after its
kind" operates in the matter of man and marriage. The process whereby the woman was
brought to man illustrates the principle "whose seed is in itself". Man by his constitution
is called a being that "breathes": "And the Lord God . . . . . breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2: 7). "All in whose nostrils was the
breath of life" (Gen. 7: 22). With this we should remember the word translated "rib" is
in the LXX rendered by the word pleura and is associated with the lungs and breathing.
Woman was evidently, like the seed in the plant "after its kind". Adam looked upon the
woman brought to him as a help meet for him and said "This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh", and Jacobs, in the Anthologia Palatina, shows that the Greek
word pleura was used for "a wife". The progeny of such a pair must be unmixed and
"after its kind". Another matter of importance is the evident relation of Gen. 2: 25 with
3: 1. In both verses a word derived from the Hebrew word arom is found. In
Gen. 2: 25 it is translated "naked", and the spelling of the Hebrew word can be shown in
English as arohm, and in 3: 1 it is translated "subtil", the spelling of the Hebrew word
in English being aroom. In the first occurrence the primitive meaning of nudity is
retained; in the second the secondary meaning to be cunning or crafty in a bad sense is
added.
The figure of the seed is however not quite out of mind, although to the modern and
Western reader there is nothing to call up the idea of "seed" in these words. When the
word takes the feminine form in the plural aremah, it is then translated "heap of corn"
(Ruth 3: 7), and this because the corn was "naked" or stripped of husk and straw, the
threshing being done on the spot. To this the Apostle refers in I Cor. 15: 37 when
speaking of the resurrection body as "bare grain". Here the word translated is gumnos
"naked" and so translated in connection with resurrection in II Cor. 5: 3 "We shall not
be found naked". Adam and his wife were "bare grain", stripped of all that is suggested