Genesis 2:21-22

More than once when God initiated a new relationship for someone He first put that person to sleep (cf. Genesis 15:12; Genesis 28:11). He evidently did so to assure the recipient that his own works had no part in his receiving it. [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. 46.] It was totally a gift of God’s grace.

". . . the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved." [Note: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 7.]

"Just as the rib is found at the side of the man and is attached to him, even so the good wife, the rib of her husband, stands at his side to be his helper-counterpart, and her soul is bound up with him." [Note: Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Part I: From Adam to Noah, p. 134.]

God fashioned Eve to be a suitable companion for Adam. Then He presented her to him as a gift.

"That woman was taken from man no more implies the inferiority of woman to man than the taking of man from the ground (’adam from ’adamah) implies the inferiority of man to the ground." [Note: Merrill, p. 19.]

". . . the whole account of woman’s creation has a poetic flavor: it is certainly mistaken to read it as an account of a clinical operation or as an attempt to explain some feature of man’s anatomy . . . Rather, it brilliantly depicts the relation of man and wife. . . . Here the ideal of marriage as it was understood in ancient Israel is being portrayed, a relationship characterized by harmony and intimacy between the partners." [Note: Wenham, p. 69.]