Genesis 2:18 - Exposition

In anticipation of the ensuing narrative of the temptation and the fall, the historian, having depicted man's settlement in Eden, advances to complete his dramatis personae by the introduction upon the scene of the animals and woman. In the preliminary creation record ( Genesis 1:7-27 ) it is simply stated that God created man, male and female; there is a complete absence of details as to the Divine modus operandi in the execution of these, his last and greatest works. It is one object, among others, of the second portion of the history to supply those details. With regard to man (Adam), an account of his formation, at once minute and exhaustive, has been given in the preceding verses ( Genesis 2:7-17 ); now, with like attention to antecedent and concomitant circumstances and events, the sacred penman adds a description of the time, reason, manner, and result of the formation of woman. And the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone. While the animals were produced either in swarms (as the fishes) or in pairs (as the birds and beasts), man was created as an individual; his partner, by a subsequent operation of creative power, being produced from himself. With the wild phantasies and gross speculations of some theosophists, as to whether, prior to the creation of Eve, Adam was androgynic (Bohme), or simply vir in potentia , out of which state he passed the moment the woman stood by his side (Ziegler), a devout exegesis is not required to intermeddle. Neither is it needful to wonder how God should pronounce that to be not good which he had previously ( Genesis 1:31 ) affirmed was good. The Divine judgment of which the preceding chapter speaks was expressed at the completion of man's creation; this, while that creation was in progress. For the new-made man to have been left without a partner would, in the estimation of Jehovah Elohim, have been for him a condition of being which, if not necessarily bad in itself, yet, considering his intellectual and social nature, "would eventually have passed over from the negative not good, or a manifest want, into the positive not good, or a hurtful impropriety"' (Lange). "It was not good for man to be alone; not, as certain foolish Rabbis conceited, lest he should imagine himself to be the lord of the world, or as though no man could live without a woman, which is contrary to Scripture; but in respect of

Accordingly, Jehovah Elohim, for whom (seeing that his nature is to dispense happiness to his creatures) no more than for Adam would it have been good that man, being what he was , should remain alone, said, I will provide a help meet for him ; literally, an helper, as over against him, i.e. corresponding to him, βοηθο Ì ν κατ αυ ̓ το ì ν ; Genesis 2:20 , ο ̔ ì μοιος αυ ̓ τω ͂ͅ , LXX . The expression indicates that the forthcoming helper was to be of similar nature to the man himself, corresponding by way of supplement to the incompleteness of his lonely being, and in every way adapted to be his co-partner and companion. All that Adam's nature demanded for its completion, physically, intellectually, socially, was to be included in this altera ego who was soon to stand by his side. Thus in man's need, and woman's power to satisfy that need, is laid the foundation for the Divine institution of marriage, which was afterwards prescribed not for the first pair alone, but for all their posterity.