Moses says therefore that Adam was sunk into a profound sleep; so that stretched on the grassy earth, he breathed deeply, as those do who sleep well and sweetly. It was such a sleep that God, as Moses informs us, caused to fall upon Adam. And this is indeed a sleep truly divine, a most delightful gift of God, which comes down upon us like a dew from above, and softly pervades and irrorates the whole body. When Adam therefore was thus fallen asleep, the Lord took out one of his ribs. The Hebrew word ZELA signifies, "the rib with the side." Wherefore my view of the passage is, that the Lord did not take the bare rib of Adam, but the rib clothed with the flesh, according to that very expression of Adam below, verse 23, "this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." And God, be it observed, did this by his Word. So that we are not to suppose that God used any cutting, after the manner of a surgeon. God said, out of this bone thus clothed with flesh, "Let there be woman!" and it was so. And God afterwards filled up the aperture in his side with flesh. Here a discussion is raised by some marvelous triflers of commentators. They will have it that the male has more ribs on one side of the body than on the other. But surgeons, who are anatomists, know better than this. Lyra disputes the point thus: "Are we to consider that the extracted rib was a superfluous one in the body of Adam? If it was so, it was a monstrosity. If it were not so, it must follow that Adam after- ..."[text not printed] At length, Lyra arrives at the conclusion that the extracted rib was superfluous in Adam, as a solitary instance; and that therefore when it had been extracted, the body of Adam was perfect. And yet, that the body of Adam was deficient in this extracted superfluous rib, because of the creation of the woman out of it. But to all these things we give an answer by the words, "God said!" This divine Word settles all arguments of this description. What need is there then of disputation as to whence God took any particular portion of created material, who by one word of his mouth can create and did create all things? All these idle questions however are used by philosophers and professors of medicine, who dispute about the works of God without the Word of God; whereas by so doing, they sink out of sight both the glory of the Holy Scriptures and the glorious majesty of the Creator.