The Suitable Helpmeet

Along the way to that final assessment of creation by God that everything He had made was very good, God noticed a lack. Something was incomplete. Something in creation was not as it should be. What was it? Adam was all alone. And God realized, “It is not good that man should be alone.” God’s solution was to “make him a helper comparable to him.” That helper was the woman, Eve.

But what or who is this helper that God will make? I mean, what is she really? I quoted to you from the New King James Version of Genesis 2:18, but the New American Standard and the New International Version of the Bible translate it as a “suitable helper” that God would make, and the old King James Version translates it as “helpmeet.” What is a “suitable helper?” I heard Chuck Swindall once quote from the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary: “helper – n.: one that helps: esp.: a relatively unskilled worker who assists a skilled worker, usually by manual labor.”

Ouch! That definition wasn’t very complimentary. Feminists might call them “fighting words.” And any men who actually treated their wives like they were menial servants, believing this definition, are the ones who give this verse a bad reputation. Shame on them – those male, chauvinist pigs. That is not at all what the Bible means.

Swindall cleared up the misunderstanding, and so will I. The Hebrew meaning of the word translated helper is entirely different. It means, “Someone who assists another to reach complete fulfillment, to complement, to fill up.” The word was often used to describe a rescuer. Now doesn’t that sound better? Eve rescued Adam from his incompleteness.

Plus, God adds that this rescuer He would make would be suitable, corresponding to Adam, exactly what Adam needed. Thus, God designed the woman to make the man all he was intended to be before God. She would be the perfect complement. Now Adam would be able to fulfill God’s mandate on his life.

But, what is interesting in the narrative of Genesis chapter two is that God doesn’t form Eve right off. What is God’s first step? He creates a desire in Adam.

This is found in Genesis 2:19-20:

19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

No, this isn’t happening now, after man’s creation, but this is explanatory. The birds were created on day five and the land animals on day six. But Adam has the task of naming them.

This harkens back to the task, the job description, that God gave Adam in Genesis 1:26, “Then God said,

‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”

Naming is part of having dominion. You can’t name what you don’t control. You can’t name someone else’s baby, for instance. You can’t even name their dog or their cat. The one who owns or controls them names them.

But to name the animals meant Adam had to study them. Names had significance. They described the character of the thing being named. You didn’t name your son Phineas Cromwell simply because you liked the way it sounded. You attempted to describe your son by his name. To name something was, in a sense, to know it. Therefore, Adam had to be somewhat of a botanist as well as a biologist. And he had to work at it.

But can you imagine Adam watching the animal parade? Perhaps God led them by two by two in the same fashion as He brought them to Noah. And Adam studied them, and Adam saw them cavort together and nuzzle each other. Yet, he is all alone with God’s promise fresh in his mind. Is this the one? Is that? NO! It is not the aardvark , the beaver, or even the chimpanzees. Certainly not the dinosaurs. None of them were right for Adam. None of them were like him.

Perhaps God wanted Adam to realize his need before He filled that need. Perhaps Adam needs to understand why he should appreciate his wife. Yet, as of this time, Genesis 2:20 says, “But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.” What now? God must act. God must fulfill His promise. And God does in a dramatic and glorious way. And this gift of a wife is God’s perfect provision for the need within Adam.