Genesis 1:27 Meaning: Image of God, Male and Female

The word for “man” here is adam, a collective noun meaning humankind or the whole human race. It has no plural form in Hebrew, one word for every person from the first breath onward. That alone says something: we stand together under this word.

“Image” is tselem, which originally meant a carved figure or a shadow. A shadow is not the real thing, but it shares the outline and points to the one casting it. That is what we are, not God, but a visible sign of Him in the world. The verse repeats this twice so we don’t miss the weight of it.

Then come the words “male” (zakhar) and “female” (neqevah). These are straightforward words about sex, but they are placed where a poet would put a final line that completes the thought. Belonging to one sex or the other is not an afterthought. It is part of how the image appears on earth.

Reformed commentators like Calvin emphasize that the repeated mention of God’s image is no empty repetition. It proclaims a dignity we have lost through sin and a glory we are meant to recover. Matthew Henry sees in the “male and female” wording a divine blessing on marriage and human society. The Anglican Cambridge Bible notes the poetic structure and says questions about multiple original pairs, Caucasian, Mongolian, and so on, lie beyond the horizon of this passage. The Baptist commentator Gill finds the image in the form of the body, the immortality of the soul, and the dominion over creation. Each tradition reads the verse as establishing human worth and relationship, though they highlight different aspects of that worth.

A common misreading is to think that “the image of God” refers only to our spiritual capacities, reason, conscience, language, and that being created male and female is a separate detail about reproduction. In fact, the verse intertwines the two. It says God created humankind in His image, then immediately specifies “male and female he created them.” The grammar ties the image to our embodied existence as two sexes. Being male or female is not an extra; it is part of how the image is carried into the world together.

This week, you will cross paths with people who are easy to dismiss: the person who cuts you off in traffic, the coworker whose politics frustrate you, the stranger whose lifestyle you do not understand. Before you write them off, remember this verse. That person bears God’s image. Not because they earned it or deserve it, but because God placed His stamp on them at creation. The same goes for you on days when you feel worthless. You are an image-bearer. Let that change how you speak to yourself and how you treat others, not as projects or obstacles, but as people carrying a divine mark.