Genesis - Chapter 02 - Line 00052

Contemplative Summary

And YHWH God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and he slept. And he took one from his sides, and closed up flesh in its place.

Creation pauses, and the divine act turns inward. The Hebrew tardemah — “deep sleep” — is not mere rest but a descent beyond perception, a stillness where transformation can unfold unseen. The human, who had named and known, now releases control; awareness yields to mystery. From his own side — mitzaltotav — God draws a portion, a hidden reflection of self, then seals the opening with basar, living flesh. Nothing is lost, only rearranged; division here is not destruction but unfolding.

The shaping that follows is intimate and veiled — creation within creation. The Source moves in silence, fashioning relationship not from dust this time, but from shared being. What was one becomes two, yet the essence remains whole, pulsing with recognition still to come. The closing of flesh is not concealment but completion — a sign that every true separation carries within it the memory of unity.

To contemplate this line is to feel the rhythm of surrender and re-formation — how life deepens through rest, how something unseen must often part from us for love to take form. Perhaps every threshold of becoming begins this way: a falling into stillness, a drawing forth, and a gentle sealing where the new waits to awaken.