Jan 24, 2020
Female Gender, its Significance and Why God Created it
The Female Gender is often decried today. Here’s what it represents from a Godly perspective.
To be a female in today’s society is not always easy. Often dominated into subservience, they are not always able to assume their responsibilities as women. Females do, however, have an important role to play in human society.
Over the last few posts, we’ve discussed how God made human beings in His image and His likeness, after His kind, Godkind. These Biblical contexts reveal that humans are all ONE race. Biblical Hebrew and the word adam are clear. It is not just the name of the first human being, adam is first and foremost a singular noun denoting all humanity, all people, all humans possess the image and likeness of God. We are ALL Godkind. We are ALL EQUAL. There are two genders for procreation purposes. Each gender is different with a specific role to play. Last week we discussed the male role.
Genesis 1.26–27 And God said, Let us make man (all of humanity) in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over…
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female (H5647) created he them.
Despite the differences in gender, both the male and female have God’s image. The name of the gender identifies the role (5th key to master Biblical Hebrew). In English, it is impossible to see and know what a woman is. That’s why it is imperative to look at the Biblical Hebrew.
נְקֵבָה nᵉqêbâh nek-ay-baw’; from H5344 (נָקַב); female (from the sexual form):
KJV — female.נָקַב nâqab naw-kab’; a primitive root; to puncture, literally (to perforate, with more or less violence) or figuratively (to specify, designate, libel):
KJV — appoint, blaspheme, bore, curse, express, with holes, name, pierce, strike through.
Look at how the King James translators rendered H5344 (which is the basis, the root, of 5347), appoint, blaspheme, bore, curse, express, with holes, name, pierce, strike through. The 7th key to mastering Biblical Hebrew is to understand that Hebrew words, of and by themselves, tell a story. If you know the meaning of female, you can tell the story of Eve, the first female. You can tell that story using all these words, which are the highlights of her life.
Last week I wrote that I was dumbfounded by preeminence as a descriptive of male. Likewise, when I read Strong’s H5344, to perforate with more or less violence, for female. I said to myself, Sam, you’re in hot water! And the fact is I agonized over writing this section, putting it off, starting, stopping, revising. But write it I must so let’s look closely at the Biblical Hebrew. Let’s look at bore, hole, and pierce and see why Strong expressed himself as he did. The Biblical Hebrew reveals the underlying meaning of female, נָקַב nâqab (H5344).
Bore, Hole, Pierce
2 Kings 12:9
But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored (H5344) a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the LORD: and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money that was brought into the house of the LORD.
Haggai 1:6
You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes (H5344).
2 Kings 18:21
Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it (H5344): so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.
The Hebrew is very graphic. Female means a hole that is or can be bored or pierced. Do I have to say more? When Strong writes to perforate with more or less violence, he’s expressing the human nature of men, the other gender, and their physical strength. Men have free will; they can and do make bad choices and display wrong behavior. They can and do take advantage of females.
The Biblical Hebrew is talking specifically about male and female genitalia. The preeminence, that which sticks out, and a hole that can be pierced. Male and female in Biblical Hebrew call a spade a spade. The most prominent and only visible difference, immediately at childbirth, are their genitals; this is the fundamental physical difference between a male and a female.
However, you cannot mention the difference without immediately adding their complementarity. The design of the preeminence is to enter the hole, and the design of the hole is to be pierced by the preeminence. For purposes of procreation, the male preeminence is useless by itself. Likewise, the female hole is useless by itself. It’s only together that the preeminence and the hole can develop humanity.
I don’t want to elaborate here, but the genitals are only the visible tip of the iceberg when it comes to male and female reproductive organs. Reread about this in Inventory of the Universe. Meditate on the prodigious mechanism and processes that go into birthing. Just think about the hordes of sperm swimming up the reproductive tract to reach the ovum, think about how only one penetrates the outer layer, and then the rest get shut out; this is just-in-time complementarity. Both the entire male and female reproductive systems are perfectly compatible.
The Biblical Hebrew clearly identifies the two genders, the male and the female, the preeminence and the hole. The difference coupled with their complementarity to procreate.
Males and females populate our world; each has a special status. The Bible does not play the male and female one against the other. The Explanation is not trying to paint a mollifying, conciliatory, nor a provocative, insulting picture. I’m using Biblical Hebrew as the basis for this explication. We see Bible-wide context corroboration, and there’s much more to come to show the equality and the complementarity of both sexes. The comprehension of this verse helps us understand the entire relationship between men and women both in the Bible and in the secular world.
Female, her name expresses her purpose
Let’s look at the second characteristic of female, נָקַב nâqab (H5347 and its root H5344).
Numbers 1:17
And Moses and Aaron took these men which are expressed H5344 by their names:
Isaiah 62:22
And the Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory: and you shalt be called by a new name H5344, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.
The expression of a new name is referring to being specifically designated for a purpose. The purpose of the first female was to be the mother of all humanity (Genesis 3:20). Quite a purpose. A female, hole, is both to be pierced and to give birth, that’s the only way human society can procreate and continue to exist from a physical point of view — quite a purpose. The design of women is specifically for this purpose. Let me add that it is not the only purpose of women. They have much to offer, much that females alone can provide in many other domains, as we shall see.
In this context, I will quickly mention that 1 Timothy 2:15 indicates that spiritual salvation for the female comes through childbearing. All of humanity can only be saved via the female, via the role of the hole to bear children and specifically to bear Christ. There’s no space to develop this here; make it a personal Bible study. The female role is indispensable and priceless.
You cannot put a male and a female in opposition one to the other. The design of each is for a specific goal. There’s no point in having a preeminence if there’s no hole, there’s no point in having a hole if there’s no preeminence. There’s no point in having sperm if there’s no ovum. There’s no point in having an ovum if there’s no sperm. There’s no point in having a male if there’s no female. There’s no point in having a female if there’s no male. Same with bride and groom, husband and wife, father and mother. It’s always a complementary twosome.
We are going to see that together the male and the female grow and rule humanity. This coupling of their complementarity is a cornerstone structure of human society. It is a fundamental social relationship that we are underestimating in today’s world.
Male and female, preeminence and hole, Christ and the Church.
There is a spiritual counterpart to female, just as the spiritual counterpart to preeminence is Christ. For the female, it is the Church. Without elaboration, you can read this in Ephesians 5:31–32. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. The female is the wife and mother just as the Church is to be the wife of Christ and is the mother of God’s children. It might surprise you, but Christ cannot do His work without His bride and future wife, the Church. One of the reasons for His first-coming was to establish that Church. Again this merits elaboration but not here and not now.
Just as the preeminence cannot procreate without the hole, so Christ’s goal is to develop God’s children via His Church. That’s why He called His disciples, His Apostles, and established His Church. All represented by the female. What a purpose.
Sam’s reflexions
The day after this article was initially published, the anti-rape activists Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege received the Nobel Peace Prize. In the context of the state of our world and the Bible identity of females, It is precisely the female identity that is being attacked. In the wake of the MeToo movement, what happens in Syria and the Congo, represented by Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, is atrocious. No words can express the sheer horror of sexual harassment, rape, and the impalement of female genitals. At least this Nobel Peace Prize will bring some focus to the crux of female identity.
This article is an excerpt from chapter 1.7 of the book Origin of Humankind
Further Study
There is a lot of material in the Bible about women and their role. Many people take the Old Testament descriptions as the norm and think women are put down. Maybe even using that to consider women as second-class. There is a reason why the Old Testament says what it does about women as with child-rearing and even capital punishment. I will show you why this is so, but not now. First, you need to have the background, which is what we’re establishing.
God created males and females equal but different. That is the first thing the Bible says, and it should be the basis of our focus. You can only understand the branches and the twigs if you grasp that they’re attached to the trunk and roots. First, come the roots and the trunk.
The trunk establishes the female as the mother of humanity. 1 Timothy 2:15 indicates the female would be spiritually saved in childbearing. She represents the Church and has the role of the Church. Study the role of the Church, and you’ll see the magnificent role women have to play in society.
You can read all of the book Origin of the Universe online. Sam blogs weekly at TheExplanation.com The Explanation masters Biblical Hebrew to help you unlock more in-depth Bible meaning. Free tools to read and study the Bible online.
