Reprinted from the Theology of Work Project, lead contributor Alice Matthews.
From time immemorial men and women have worked together in whatever enterprise they’ve found themselves. In the early American colonies women worked at tasks ranging from attorneys to undertakers, from blacksmiths to gunsmiths, from jailers to shipbuilders, from butchers to loggers. Some historians tell us that women ran ferries and operated sawmills and gristmills. They ground eyeglasses and painted houses. Every kind of work done by men was done, at least occasionally, by women. Wives had a good knowledge of their husbands’ work and often took over the business, running it successfully when the husband died.
But with the developing Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, “men’s work” and “women’s work” became increasingly separated to the point that the Doctrine of Separate Spheres became firmly entrenched in people’s thinking. Men and women were considered so different from each other that there could be no overlap in their skills or occupations. Any thought of men and women working side-by-side was out of the question.
But that was not God’s original design. In Genesis 1:26-28 we hear God speaking:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Note that God gave both the man and the woman two tasks: to create families (populating the earth) and to subdue the earth, or more accurately, to be stewards or caretakers of God’s creation. Often people assume that the first command about the family was given only to the woman while the second command about stewarding the earth was given only to the man. But that misreads the text. God gave both commands to both the man and the woman. This implies that men should have family responsibilities as well as those in the workplace, and women should have responsibilities in the wider world as well as in the home.
It is in turning the page to Genesis 2:18 that we get a clearer picture of that original command. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” Earlier in Genesis 2 the man had been placed in a beautiful garden with the assigned task of tilling it and keeping it. In Genesis 2:18 God creates a woman to work alongside the man in the same endeavor.
God Created Woman as an Ezer Kind of Helper (Genesis 2:18)
What Does Ezer Mean in the Bible?
Many opinions of working women have been shaped by the word in Genesis 2:18, “helper.” This word therefore merits some greater attention. Was the woman to be merely a helpful assistant to the man? In our day we use the word “helper” in the sense of a plumber’s assistant, handing the boss the right wrench for the job. But that is far from the meaning of the Hebrew word used to describe the first woman.
What Does Ezer Mean in Hebrew?
God created the woman as an ezer. The word ezer occurs twenty-one times in the Old Testament. In two cases it refers to the first woman, Eve, in Genesis 2. Three times it refers to powerful nations Israel called on for help when besieged. In the sixteen remaining cases the word refers to God as our help. He is the one who comes alongside us in our helplessness. That’s the meaning of ezer. Because God is not subordinate to his creatures, any idea that an ezer-helper is inferior is untenable. In his book Man and Woman: One in Christ, Philip Payne puts it this way: “The noun used here [ezer] throughout the Old Testament does not suggest ‘helper’ as in ‘servant,’ but help, savior, rescuer, protector as in ‘God is our help.’ In no other occurrence in the Old Testament does this refer to an inferior, but always to a superior or an equal…’help’ expresses that the woman is a help/strength who rescues or saves man.”
While many devout Christians see a woman’s function as a subordinate to a man, the word ezer in the original Hebrew overturns that idea. The woman was not created to serve the man, but to serve with the man. Without the woman, the man was only half the story. She was not an afterthought or an optional adjunct to an independent, self-sufficient man. God said in Genesis 2:18 that without her, the man’s condition was “not good.” God’s intention in creating the woman for the man was for the two to be partners in the many tasks involved in stewarding God’s creation.
Genesis 3 and the Birth of Sin
While Genesis 1 and 2 show us how God intended human beings to be, Genesis 3 shows us what the man and woman chose to become. You probably know the story about a forbidden tree called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and about a snake who persuaded the woman that eating its forbidden fruit would make her like God, knowing everything, both good and evil. She was persuaded, and the man standing next to her followed her example. In the instant that they both ate the fruit, everything changed for both of them. The man’s work would remain that of tilling the ground, but now he would have to contend with harsh conditions. Part of the woman’s punishment was that her desire would be for the man, but he would dominate her. Among the consequences of the Fall, patriarchy was born.
Patriarchy means male domination of the female. The word describes how societies have been structured from very early in human history. In Genesis 4 we see that polygamy also appeared early, as Lamech boasts to his two wives about his ability to best all opponents. After Adam and Eve left the Garden, wives became collectible property. The accumulation of obscenity and violence meant that, ” The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. ” (Genesis 6:5).
Sinful people treat others unjustly. This has been true almost from the beginning of time and it is true today. Both men and women may suffer unjust treatment in the workplace and feel powerless to change their circumstances. But God is aware of the evil that exists in human hearts. He routinely uses human instruments to challenge evil and its perpetrators.
Shiphrah and Puah: Two Ezer Midwives Defy the King (Exodus 1:8-22)
One consequence of the woman’s sin was greater pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16). Enter midwives. Midwives have been part of human experience as long as we have historical records. [2] In Exodus 1 this particularly female vocation takes center stage in a political context. The setting is Egypt where the Hebrew people are mercilessly enslaved, forced to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses with poor materials. “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” (Exodus 1:12).
The Pharaoh (king) ordered the midwives to kill all boy babies at birth, but the midwives “feared God” and let the boys live. Jonathan Magonet has called these two midwives “the earliest and in some ways the most powerful examples of resistance to an evil regime.” Ordered to carry out genocide, these two brave women risked their lives by disobeying the Pharaoh. They were ezer women in the original meaning of the word, helping those who needed their help. Willing to stand bravely against evil, these women used their professional expertise to aid their people in a time of crisis.
Sometimes ezer women are called to stand against a powerful evil, or to aid those who are weaker, or both. One of the Hebrew babies saved by the midwives grew up to defy the Pharaoh and deliver the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. We honor Moses as one of the great heroes in Hebrew history, but he survived only because two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, risked their lives when they defied the king’s order.
Sometimes women (and men) in the workplace today find themselves facing an order from a boss that they cannot ethically carry out. Knowing God’s will and doing it in such circumstances may cost them their job. But just as God honored the Hebrew midwives, God honors those today who stand up and fight for what is right in the workplace.
Read the full article at the Theology of Work Project.
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