One Spirit

Genesis 2:24 speaks of one flesh. The rest of Scripture shows that the union of a husband and wife reaches further than the body. Three passages, from the life of Isaac, from the prophet Malachi and from the apostle Paul, speak of marriage in terms of the spirit. Genesis shows it quietly, Malachi says it openly, and Paul sets the flesh and the spirit side by side.

A Bitterness of Spirit

Genesis gives it as a small detail in the family of Isaac.

Genesis 26:34-35 And Esau was a son of forty years, and he took a wife (ishah אִשָּׁה ish-shaw'): Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a bitterness of spirit (ruach רוּחַ roo'-akh) to Isaac and to Rebekah.

Esau, at forty, married two women of the Hittites, a people of the land of Canaan. The verse says less about Esau himself than about what his marriages did to his parents.

The Hebrew word ruach (רוּחַ) is spirit, the same word used for the Spirit of God and for the breath of life. Here it stands in the singular. The verse does not say that the wives were a bitterness to the spirits of Isaac and Rebekah, as if each had a separate grief. It says “a bitterness of spirit,” in the singular, as if the two of them grieved with one spirit.

How much weight can that carry? Hebrew can use a singular noun for something shared by two people, so the grammar alone does not prove a doctrine, and no one should build a teaching on this verse by itself. But read beside Genesis 2:24, where the two become one flesh, and beside Malachi 2, where the prophet speaks openly of the spirit in marriage, the singular reads naturally as the one spirit of a married pair. It is a quiet picture, not a proof. Isaac and Rebekah, who had been joined as one flesh, grieved with one spirit.

The grief was real, and the next chapter shows Rebekah speaking it aloud.

Genesis 27:46 And Rebekah said to Isaac, "I loathe my life (chai חַי khah'-ee) because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife (ishah) of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, why is life (chai) to me?"

Malachi: The Wife of Your Covenant

Malachi speaks to men of Judah who came to the altar weeping because God no longer received their offerings.

Malachi 2:13-16 And this second thing you do: covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and groaning, so that there is no more regarding the offering, nor taking it with favor from your hand. And you say, "On what account?" Because the LORD has witnessed between you and the wife (ishah) of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and the wife (ishah) of your covenant (berit בְּרִית ber-eeth'). And did not one make them? And a remnant of spirit (ruach) was his. And what did the one seek? a seed of God. Therefore take heed to your spirit (ruach), and let none deal treacherously against the wife (ishah) of his youth. For he hates sending away, says the LORD the God of Israel; and one covers violence upon his garment, says the LORD of hosts (tzevaot צָבָא tsaw-baw'); therefore take heed to your spirit (ruach), that you deal not treacherously.

When they ask why, Malachi answers that the LORD Himself stood as witness between each man and “the wife (ishah) of your youth.” She is “your companion and the wife (ishah) of your covenant (berit).” Marriage, in Malachi’s words, is a covenant, and God is the witness to it. The word for companion is chaveret (חֲבֶרֶת), from a root that means to join; she is the one joined to you. The prophet’s answer sends them home, to the wife they had joined themselves to before God.

Then comes a dense sentence: “And did not one make them? And a remnant of spirit (ruach) was his. And what did the one seek? a seed of God.” The Hebrew is compact and has been translated in many ways, but its key words are plain. The word echad, “one,” appears twice, the same word as “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24. The word ruach, “spirit,” appears three times in these verses: “a remnant of spirit (ruach) was his,” and twice the warning, “take heed to your spirit.” And the purpose of the union is named: zera זֶרַע zeh'-rah Elohim (זֶרַע אֱלֹהִים), “a seed of God.”

That phrase gathers up the blessing of Genesis 1 and the oneness of Genesis 2. God made the two one, with spirit, and what He sought through that union was a seed of God. Marriage was made one so that it might bring forth a seed of God.

Treachery in the Spirit

The verb that runs through the passage is bagad (בָּגַד), “to deal treacherously.” It is the word for breaking faith, for betraying someone who trusted you. The men of Malachi’s day were sending away the wives of their youth, and the prophet calls it treachery.

Malachi places the guard in a telling place. He does not only forbid treachery against the wife. He says, “take heed to your spirit (ruach), and let none deal treacherously against the wife (ishah) of his youth.” And at the end he says it again: “take heed to your spirit (ruach), that you deal not treacherously.” Malachi ties the treachery a man commits against his wife to his own spirit, because the two were made one, with spirit. The bodily union and the spiritual reality cannot be pulled apart.

And Malachi says what God thinks of it: “For he hates sending away, says the LORD the God of Israel.” The word for sending away is the word used for putting a wife out of the house. The God who witnessed the covenant hates to see it broken.

Paul: One Body, One Spirit

The third passage comes from Paul, writing to the believers in Corinth, where he is warning them against sexual immorality.

1 Corinthians 6:15-17 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take away the members of Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, "The two shall become one sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh)." But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) with Him.

Paul applies Genesis 2:24 to two kinds of joining. A man who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her, “for it says, ‘The two shall become one sarx(flesh).’” Paul applies the words of Genesis even to a union that God never blessed; the joining is real even when it is a misuse of what God made.

Then, in the very next verse, he sets the other joining beside it: “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one pneuma(spirit) with Him.”

The Greek verb behind “joins” is kollao (κολλάω), to glue together, to fasten. Its compound, proskollao, is the word for the davaq, “cleave,” of Genesis 2:24 when Yeshua quotes that verse (Matthew 19:5) and when Paul quotes it (Ephesians 5:31). A man joined to a woman becomes one flesh with her, and the one joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.

From this Paul draws a command.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 Flee sexual immorality; every sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a naos ναός nah-os'(temple, inner-sanctuary) of the hagio(holy) pneuma(spirit) within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your pneuma(spirit), which are God's.

The believer’s body is a naos, an inner sanctuary, of the Holy Spirit, and it is not his own; it was bought with a price. To join that body to a prostitute is to take what belongs to the Lord and give it away.

Flesh and Spirit Together

Marriage was made one flesh, and it was also made with spirit. And the joining of a man and a woman points beyond itself to a joining that is entirely of the spirit: a believer clinging to the Lord and becoming one spirit with Him.

Scripture has one more word for the union of a husband and wife, the word “know,” and that word runs from the first family after the garden to the prayer of Yeshua on the night before His death.