Page:The Song of Songs (1857).djvu/29

 moral powers. The words used by God respecting the creation of the woman are, "the being of man in his solitary state is not good. I will make him a help-mate corresponding to him;" that is, one that shall be exactly like him in affections, in sympathies, in mind, in fact his counterpart; she shall be the reflection of his own person. That this is the meaning of [HE:k.^enen^ed.vO] is evident from the Septuagint, which renders it in verse 18, [GR:kat' au)to/n], and verse 20, [GR:o(/moios au)tô|=]; and from the Syriac and the Vulgate; as well as from the Rabbinical usage of [HE:k.^enened], to express things exactly like one another.[1] The word of God affirms here, that the woman was created exactly with the same capacities as the man, and contains no intimation of subserviency to him, or of being in the slightest degree weaker or less virtuous than he. The fact that the Tempter assailed the woman, and not the man, so far from showing that the woman was weaker, would rather prove that she was stronger; that the cunning serpent knew this, and was persuaded, if he could only prevail over the woman, she, with her superior influence, would be sure to succeed with the man, as the sad result showed.

The curse which God pronounced upon the guilty pair, proves that the woman was created with the same intellectual and moral capacities as the man. Had the woman been weaker in these respects than the man, she would not have been accountable in an equal degree for her sin, and would not have been punished with the same severity.

No alteration has taken place in their relative position, in this respect, since the fall. The curse upon the woman in relation to the man does not refer to any intellectual or moral, but to a physical, inferiority. Hitherto the Protoplasts resided in Paradise, and subsisted upon its delightful fruit; and the employment of the man was mere recreation. Henceforth they were to be driven from that happy abode; the woman was to experience all the sorrow and pain of

1 See Gesenius, Lexicon in voce.