Genesis 2:23

And Adam said, This time, and not again, is woman created from man. Thus, because she is created from me, (she is) bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. This it is fit to call Woman, because from man she was taken.

זאת הפעם עצם מעצמי, “only this time will man’s wife be made of his own bone and flesh; in the future things will be reversed, a male will come forth from a female, not as this time.”

זאת, this female

הפעם הזאת, finally, this time עצם מעצמי ובשר מבשרי, only this time, seeing that all females of the future will not be fashioned by the male undergoing such type of surgery.

לזאת יקרא אשה, all other female human beings in the future will be known as אשה,

even though they will not, like this time, be literally part of the flesh of their husbands.

כי מאיש לוקחה זאת, “this one,” the first woman ever.

ויאמר..זאת, for on the first occasion when G’d brought the domesticated animals, the free roaming beasts and the birds to be inspected by Adam, he had not seen among them one that would qualify as his mate. The reason was that none of them matched him in physical features even, not to speak of intellectual compatibility. However, this time, finally, when G’d brought Chavah to him, he recognised immediately that he had found a truly compatible mate. He did not only realise this by comparing her visible features, but he became aware that part of his body, or at least one of his ribs, had been removed, which confirmed his impression that Chavah must indeed be his other half.

לזאת יקרא אשה כי מאיש לוקחה זאת, note that he did not say לזאת יקרא אדמה, “this one must be called אדמה, (as the feminine form of אדם). The reason he did not call here this was that she, as opposed to him, had not been formed directly from earth, but from refined matter, i.e. his own rib. Even though subsequent human beings who are born by woman and from sperm supplied by the male, are still referred to as אדם, although they do not originate in the אדמה, the custom is justified just as is the fact that the Jewish people whose ancestor was Yisrael, are called בני ישראל, “Children of Yisrael” though their genetic connection to the original Yisrael is extremely tenuous.

The word איש is a general term for man, also sometimes used to refer to a specific human being. This is why sometimes the word is used as describing people in general, such as ואיש לא נעדר, and “no one was missing,” (Isaiah 40,26) or גדעון איש ישראל, “or איש ואשתו, “male and his mate” (Genesis 7,2). Seeing that the man is the predominant partner and the woman’s husband, seeing she is as if literally one of his organs, he is often referred to as אדון, “master.” In Judges 8,23 we read ויאמרו איש ישראל אל גדעון וגו'. The meaning is not that a particular Jewish man said something to Gideon, but that the Jewish people at that time suggested to Gideon that be become their ruler on an ongoing basis, even his children having a claim to succeed him. The reason why Adam did not refer to Chavah as אישה, as the feminine form of איש, was to avoid confusion with the word אישה when it means “her husband.”