The first word of Genesis 2:24, “Therefore” (Hebrew ʿal-kēn),1 isn’t a throwaway; it’s the hinge that ties Adam’s joyful cry in verse 23 to God’s design for marriage in verse 24. Because the woman is “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” something new and profound follows: the union of man and woman into a single, God-ordained family. This little word signals more than a narrative transition; it announces that what just happened in Eden sets the pattern for all marriages to come. The New Testament writers pick up on this force, treating Genesis 2:24 not as cultural custom but as a divine ordinance meant to ground lifelong, faithful union (Matthew 19:4–6; Ephesians 5:31).
Kenneth A. Mathews suggests that “for this reason” [which is the New International Version translation of the Hebrew word ʿal-kēn] is not so much an explanation of Adam’s exclamation as it is a description of the consequence of God’s charge to humanity to be fruitful and rule the earth.2 There is value in his point: marriage is indeed central to fulfilling the creation mandate of multiplying and stewarding creation. Yet to limit the “therefore” only to that broad charge seems to miss the immediate link the text itself makes. The verse flows naturally from the intimacy of verse 23—Adam’s recognition that the woman shares his very substance—and it grounds marriage in that shared identity, not merely in the practical function of procreation and dominion. In other words, the “therefore” does not replace Adam’s joy with a mandate but builds on it: because she is of him, he is now to be joined to her in a new and enduring bond.
Read this way, “therefore” carries both dimensions: delight and duty, intimacy and purpose. It affirms that marriage arises from the profound kinship between man and woman and also serves God’s larger plan for fruitfulness and stewardship. Far from being a dry connective, this one word opens a door into the divine logic of marriage: God’s design for companionship, covenant, and calling all bound together.
- Blue Letter Bible, s.v. “ʿal‑kēn (עַל־כֵּן), Lexicon,” https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3651/kjv/wlc/0-1/על_כן (accessed August 24 , 2025). ↩︎
- K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, vol. 1A of The New American Commentary (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 1996), 222. ↩︎