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Selected Verse: Genesis 2:18 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
Ge 2:18	Strong Concordance	And the LORD [03068] God [0430] said [0559], It is not good [02896] that the man [0120] should be [01961] alone; I will make [06213] him an help meet [05828] for him.
	King James	And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
THE MAKING OF WOMAN, AND INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE. (Gen 2:18-25) it is not good for the man to be alone--In the midst of plenty and delights, he was conscious of feelings he could not gratify. To make him sensible of his wants,

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

THE MAKING OF WOMAN, AND INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE. (Gen 2:18-25)

it is not good for the man to be alone--In the midst of plenty and delights, he was conscious of feelings he could not gratify. To make him sensible of his wants,

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
- XIII. The Naming of the Animals Here man's intellectual faculties proceed from the passive and receptive to the active and communicative stage. This advance is made in the review and designation of the various species of animals that frequent the land and skies. A new and final need of man is stated in Gen 2:18. The Creator himself, in whose image he was made, had revealed himself to him in language. This, among many other effects, awakened the social affection. This affection was the index of social capacity. The first step towards communication between kindred spirits was accomplished when Adam heard and understood spoken language. Beyond all this God knew what was in the man whom he had formed. And he expresses this in the words, "It is not good for the man to be alone." He is formed to be social, to hold converse, not only with his superior, but also with his equal. As yet he is but a unit, an individual. He needs a mate, with whom he may take sweet counsel. And the benevolent Creator resolves to supply this want. "I will make him a helpmeet for him" - one who may not only reciprocate his feelings, but take an intelligent and appropriate part in his active pursuits.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Creation of the Woman. - As the creation of the man is introduced in Gen 1:26-27, with a divine decree, so here that of the woman is preceded by the divine declaration, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him כּנגדּו עזר, a help of his like: "i.e., a helping being, in which, as soon as he sees it, he may recognise himself" (Delitzsch). Of such a help the man stood in need, in order that he might fulfil his calling, not only to perpetuate and multiply his race, but to cultivate and govern the earth. To indicate this, the general word כנגדו עזר is chosen, in which there is an allusion to the relation of the sexes. To call out this want, God brought the larger quadrupeds and birds to the man, "to see what he would call them (לו lit., each one); and whatsoever the man might call every living being should be its name." The time when this took place must have been the sixth day, on which, according to Gen 1:27, the man and woman were created: and there is no difficulty in this, since it would not have required much time to bring the animals to Adam to see what he would call them, as the animals of paradise are all we have to think of; and the deep sleep into which God caused the man to fall, till he had formed the woman from his rib, need not have continued long. In Gen 1:27 the creation of the woman is linked with that of the man; but here the order of sequence is given, because the creation of the woman formed a chronological incident in the history of the human race, which commences with the creation of Adam. The circumstance that in Gen 2:19 the formation of the beasts and birds is connected with the creation of Adam by the imperf. c. ו consec., constitutes to objection to the plan of creation given in Gen 1. The arrangement may be explained on the supposition, that the writer, who was about to describe the relation of man to the beasts, went back to their creation, in the simple method of the early Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making it subordinate; so that our modern style of expressing the same thought would be simply this: "God brought to Adam the beasts which He had formed." (Note: A striking example of this style of narrative we find in Kg1 7:13. First of all, the building and completion of the temple are noticed several times in 1 Kings 6, and the last time in connection with the year and month (Kg1 6:9, Kg1 6:14, Kg1 6:37-38); after that, the fact is stated, that the royal palace was thirteen years in building; and then the writer proceeds thus: "And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre...and he came to king Solomon, and did all his work; and made the two pillars," etc. Now, if we were to understand the historical preterite with consec., here, as giving the order of sequence, Solomon would be made to send for the Tyrian artist, thirteen years after the temple was finished, to come and prepare the pillars for the porch, and all the vessels needed for the temple. But the writer merely expresses in Semitic style the simple thought, that "Hiram, whom Solomon fetched from Tyre, made the vessels," etc. Another instance we find in Jdg 2:6.) Moreover, the allusion is not to the creation of all the beasts, but simply to that of the beasts living in the field (game and tame cattle), and of the fowls of the air-to beasts, therefore, which had been formed like man from the earth, and thus stood in a closer relation to him than water animals or reptiles. For God brought the animals to Adam, to show him the creatures which were formed to serve him, that He might see what he would call them. Calling or naming presupposes acquaintance. Adam is to become acquainted with the creatures, to learn their relation to him, and by giving them names to prove himself their lord. God does not order him to name them; but by bringing the beasts He gives him an opportunity of developing that intellectual capacity which constitutes his superiority to the animal world. "The man sees the animals, and thinks of what they are and how they look; and these thoughts, in themselves already inward words, take the form involuntarily of audible names, which he utters to the beasts, and by which he places the impersonal creatures in the first spiritual relation to himself, the personal being" (Delitzsch). Language, as W. v. Humboldt says, is "the organ of the inner being, or rather the inner being itself as it gradually attains to inward knowledge and expression." It is merely thought cast into articulate sounds or words. The thoughts of Adam with regard to the animals, to which he gave expression in the names that he gave them, we are not to regard as the mere results of reflection, or of abstraction from merely outward peculiarities which affected the senses; but as a deep and direct mental insight into the nature of the animals, which penetrated far deeper than such knowledge as is the simple result of reflecting and abstracting thought. The naming of the animals, therefore, led to this result, that there was not found a help meet for man. Before the creation of the woman we must regard the man (Adam) as being "neither male, in the sense of complete sexual distinction, nor androgynous as though both sexes were combined in the one individual created at the first, but as created in anticipation of the future, with a preponderant tendency, a male in simple potentiality, out of which state he passed, the moment the woman stood by his side, when the mere potentia became an actual antithesis" (Ziegler). Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man (Gen 2:21). תּרדּמּה, a deep sleep, in which all consciousness of the outer world and of one's own existence vanishes. Sleep is an essential element in the nature of man as ordained by God, and is quite as necessary for man as the interchange of day and night for all nature besides. But this deep sleep was different from natural sleep, and God caused it to fall upon the man by day, that He might create the woman out of him. "Everything out of which something new is to spring, sinks first of all into such a sleep" (Ziegler). צלע means the side, and, as a portion of the human body, the rib. The correctness of this meaning, which is given by all the ancient versions, is evident from the words, "God took one of his צלעות," which show that the man had several of them. "And closed up flesh in the place thereof;" i.e., closed the gap which had been made, with flesh which He put in the place of the rib. The woman was created, not of dust of the earth, but from a rib of Adam, because she was formed for an inseparable unity and fellowship of life with the man, and the mode of her creation was to lay the actual foundation for the moral ordinance of marriage. As the moral idea of the unity of the human race required that man should not be created as a genus or plurality, (Note: Natural science can only demonstrate the unity of the human race, not the descent of all men from one pair, though many naturalists question and deny even the former, but without any warrant from anthropological facts. For every thorough investigation leads to the conclusion arrived at by the latest inquirer in this department, Th. Waitz, that not only are there no facts in natural history which preclude the unity of the various races of men, and fewer difficulties in the way of this assumption than in that of the opposite theory of specific diversities; but even in mental respects there are no specific differences within the limits of the race. Delitzsch has given an admirable summary of the proofs of unity. "That the races of men," he says, "are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species, is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological phenomena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fundamental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of life, in the normal temperature of the body and the average rate of pulsation, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of marriages between the various races.") so the moral relation of the two persons establishing the unity of the race required that man should be created first, and then the woman from the body of the man. By this the priority and superiority of the man, and the dependence of the woman upon the man, are established as an ordinance of divine creation. This ordinance of God forms the root of that tender love with which the man loves the woman as himself, and by which marriage becomes a type of the fellowship of love and life, which exists between the Lord and His Church (Eph 5:32). If the fact that the woman was formed from a rib, and not from any other part of the man, is significant; all that we can find in this is, that the woman was made to stand as a helpmate by the side of the man, not that there was any allusion to conjugal love as founded in the heart; for the text does not speak of the rib as one which was next the heart. The word בּנה is worthy of note: from the rib of the man God builds the female, through whom the human race is to be built up by the male (Gen 16:2; Gen 30:3).

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Creation of the Woman. - As the creation of the man is introduced in Gen 1:26-27, with a divine decree, so here that of the woman is preceded by the divine declaration, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him כּנגדּו עזר, a help of his like: "i.e., a helping being, in which, as soon as he sees it, he may recognise himself" (Delitzsch). Of such a help the man stood in need, in order that he might fulfil his calling, not only to perpetuate and multiply his race, but to cultivate and govern the earth. To indicate this, the general word כנגדו עזר is chosen, in which there is an allusion to the relation of the sexes. To call out this want, God brought the larger quadrupeds and birds to the man, "to see what he would call them (לו lit., each one); and whatsoever the man might call every living being should be its name." The time when this took place must have been the sixth day, on which, according to Gen 1:27, the man and woman were created: and there is no difficulty in this, since it would not have required much time to bring the animals to Adam to see what he would call them, as the animals of paradise are all we have to think of; and the deep sleep into which God caused the man to fall, till he had formed the woman from his rib, need not have continued long. In Gen 1:27 the creation of the woman is linked with that of the man; but here the order of sequence is given, because the creation of the woman formed a chronological incident in the history of the human race, which commences with the creation of Adam. The circumstance that in Gen 2:19 the formation of the beasts and birds is connected with the creation of Adam by the imperf. c. ו consec., constitutes to objection to the plan of creation given in Gen 1. The arrangement may be explained on the supposition, that the writer, who was about to describe the relation of man to the beasts, went back to their creation, in the simple method of the early Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making it subordinate; so that our modern style of expressing the same thought would be simply this: "God brought to Adam the beasts which He had formed."

(Note: A striking example of this style of narrative we find in Kg1 7:13. First of all, the building and completion of the temple are noticed several times in 1 Kings 6, and the last time in connection with the year and month (Kg1 6:9, Kg1 6:14, Kg1 6:37-38); after that, the fact is stated, that the royal palace was thirteen years in building; and then the writer proceeds thus: "And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre...and he came to king Solomon, and did all his work; and made the two pillars," etc. Now, if we were to understand the historical preterite with consec., here, as giving the order of sequence, Solomon would be made to send for the Tyrian artist, thirteen years after the temple was finished, to come and prepare the pillars for the porch, and all the vessels needed for the temple. But the writer merely expresses in Semitic style the simple thought, that "Hiram, whom Solomon fetched from Tyre, made the vessels," etc. Another instance we find in Jdg 2:6.)

Moreover, the allusion is not to the creation of all the beasts, but simply to that of the beasts living in the field (game and tame cattle), and of the fowls of the air-to beasts, therefore, which had been formed like man from the earth, and thus stood in a closer relation to him than water animals or reptiles. For God brought the animals to Adam, to show him the creatures which were formed to serve him, that He might see what he would call them. Calling or naming presupposes acquaintance. Adam is to become acquainted with the creatures, to learn their relation to him, and by giving them names to prove himself their lord. God does not order him to name them; but by bringing the beasts He gives him an opportunity of developing that intellectual capacity which constitutes his superiority to the animal world. "The man sees the animals, and thinks of what they are and how they look; and these thoughts, in themselves already inward words, take the form involuntarily of audible names, which he utters to the beasts, and by which he places the impersonal creatures in the first spiritual relation to himself, the personal being" (Delitzsch). Language, as W. v. Humboldt says, is "the organ of the inner being, or rather the inner being itself as it gradually attains to inward knowledge and expression." It is merely thought cast into articulate sounds or words. The thoughts of Adam with regard to the animals, to which he gave expression in the names that he gave them, we are not to regard as the mere results of reflection, or of abstraction from merely outward peculiarities which affected the senses; but as a deep and direct mental insight into the nature of the animals, which penetrated far deeper than such knowledge as is the simple result of reflecting and abstracting thought. The naming of the animals, therefore, led to this result, that there was not found a help meet for man. Before the creation of the woman we must regard the man (Adam) as being "neither male, in the sense of complete sexual distinction, nor androgynous as though both sexes were combined in the one individual created at the first, but as created in anticipation of the future, with a preponderant tendency, a male in simple potentiality, out of which state he passed, the moment the woman stood by his side, when the mere potentia became an actual antithesis" (Ziegler).

Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man (Gen 2:21). תּרדּמּה, a deep sleep, in which all consciousness of the outer world and of one's own existence vanishes. Sleep is an essential element in the nature of man as ordained by God, and is quite as necessary for man as the interchange of day and night for all nature besides. But this deep sleep was different from natural sleep, and God caused it to fall upon the man by day, that He might create the woman out of him. "Everything out of which something new is to spring, sinks first of all into such a sleep" (Ziegler). צלע means the side, and, as a portion of the human body, the rib. The correctness of this meaning, which is given by all the ancient versions, is evident from the words, "God took one of his צלעות," which show that the man had several of them. "And closed up flesh in the place thereof;" i.e., closed the gap which had been made, with flesh which He put in the place of the rib. The woman was created, not of dust of the earth, but from a rib of Adam, because she was formed for an inseparable unity and fellowship of life with the man, and the mode of her creation was to lay the actual foundation for the moral ordinance of marriage. As the moral idea of the unity of the human race required that man should not be created as a genus or plurality,

(Note: Natural science can only demonstrate the unity of the human race, not the descent of all men from one pair, though many naturalists question and deny even the former, but without any warrant from anthropological facts. For every thorough investigation leads to the conclusion arrived at by the latest inquirer in this department, Th. Waitz, that not only are there no facts in natural history which preclude the unity of the various races of men, and fewer difficulties in the way of this assumption than in that of the opposite theory of specific diversities; but even in mental respects there are no specific differences within the limits of the race. Delitzsch has given an admirable summary of the proofs of unity. "That the races of men," he says, "are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species, is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological phenomena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fundamental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of life, in the normal temperature of the body and the average rate of pulsation, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of marriages between the various races.")

so the moral relation of the two persons establishing the unity of the race required that man should be created first, and then the woman from the body of the man. By this the priority and superiority of the man, and the dependence of the woman upon the man, are established as an ordinance of divine creation. This ordinance of God forms the root of that tender love with which the man loves the woman as himself, and by which marriage becomes a type of the fellowship of love and life, which exists between the Lord and His Church (Eph 5:32). If the fact that the woman was formed from a rib, and not from any other part of the man, is significant; all that we can find in this is, that the woman was made to stand as a helpmate by the side of the man, not that there was any allusion to conjugal love as founded in the heart; for the text does not speak of the rib as one which was next the heart. The word בּנה is worthy of note: from the rib of the man God builds the female, through whom the human race is to be built up by the male (Gen 16:2; Gen 30:3).

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
It is not good that man - This man, should be alone - Though there was an upper world of angels, and a lower world of brutes, yet there being none of the same rank of beings with himself, he might be truly said to be alone. And every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air God brought to Adam - Either by the ministry of angels, or by a special instinct that he might name them, and so might give a proof of his knowledge, the names he gave them being expressive of their inmost natures.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
It is not good that the man should be alone - לבדו lebaddo; only himself. I will make him a help meet for him; עזר כנגדו ezer kenegdo, a help, a counterpart of himself, one formed from him, and a perfect resemblance of his person. If the word be rendered scrupulously literally, it signifies one like, or as himself, standing opposite to or before him. And this implies that the woman was to be a perfect resemblance of the man, possessing neither inferiority nor superiority, but being in all things like and equal to himself. As man was made a social creature, it was not proper that he should be alone; for to be alone, i.e. without a matrimonial companion, was not good. Hence we find that celibacy in general is a thing that is not good, whether it be on the side of the man or of the woman. Men may, in opposition to the declaration of God, call this a state of excellence and a state of perfection; but let them remember that the word of God says the reverse.

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¹⁸ And the LORD [03068] God [0430] said [0559], It is not good [02896] that the man [0120] should be [01961] alone; I will make [06213] him an help meet [05828] for him.
¹⁹ And out of the ground [0127] the LORD [03068] God [0430] formed [03335] every beast [02416] of the field [07704], and every fowl [05775] of the air [08064]; and brought [0935] them unto Adam [0120] to see [07200] what he would call [07121] them: and whatsoever Adam [0120] called [07121] every living [02416] creature [05315], that [01931] was the name thereof [08034].
²⁰ And Adam [0120] gave [07121] names [08034] to all cattle [0929], and to the fowl [05775] of the air [08064], and to every beast [02416] of the field [07704]; but for Adam [0120] there was not found [04672] an help meet [05828] for him.
²¹ And the LORD [03068] God [0430] caused [05307] a deep sleep [08639] to fall [05307] upon Adam [0121], and he slept [03462]: and he took [03947] one [0259] of his ribs [06763], and closed up [05462] the flesh [01320] instead thereof;
²² And the rib [06763], which the LORD [03068] God [0430] had taken [03947] from man [0120], made [01129] he a woman [0802], and brought [0935] her unto the man [0120].
²³ And Adam [0120] said [0559], This [02063] is now [06471] bone [06106] of my bones [06106], and flesh [01320] of my flesh [01320]: she [02063] shall be called [07121] Woman [0802], because she [02063] was taken [03947] out of Man [0376].
²⁴ Therefore [03651] shall a man [0376] leave [05800] his father [01] and his mother [0517], and shall cleave [01692] unto his wife [0802]: and they shall be one [0259] flesh [01320].
²⁵ And they were both [08147] naked [06174], the man [0120] and his wife [0802], and were not ashamed [0954].

¹⁸ And the LORD [03068] God [0430] said [0559], It is not good [02896] that the man [0120] should be [01961] alone; I will make [06213] him an help meet [05828] for him.

³ And she said [0559], Behold my maid [0519] Bilhah [01090], go in [0935] unto her; and she shall bear [03205] upon my knees [01290], that I may also have children [01129] by her.

² And Sarai [08297] said [0559] unto Abram [087], Behold now, the LORD [03068] hath restrained me [06113] from bearing [03205]: I pray thee, go in [0935] unto my maid [08198]; it may [0194] be that I may obtain children [01129] by her. And Abram [087] hearkened [08085] to the voice [06963] of Sarai [08297].

³² This [5124] is [2076] a great [3173] mystery [3466]: but [1161] I [1473] speak [3004] concerning [1519] Christ [5547] and [1519] [2532] the church [1577].

²¹ And the LORD [03068] God [0430] caused [05307] a deep sleep [08639] to fall [05307] upon Adam [0121], and he slept [03462]: and he took [03947] one [0259] of his ribs [06763], and closed up [05462] the flesh [01320] instead thereof;

⁶ And when Joshua [03091] had let the people [05971] go [07971], the children [01121] of Israel [03478] went [03212] every man [0376] unto his inheritance [05159] to possess [03423] the land [0776].

³⁷ In the fourth [07243] year [08141] was the foundation [03245] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068] laid [03245], in the month [03391] Zif [02099]:
³⁸ And in the eleventh [0259] [06240] year [08141], in the month [03391] Bul [0945], which is the eighth [08066] month [02320], was the house [01004] finished [03615] throughout all the parts [01697] thereof, and according to all the fashion [04941] of it. So was he seven [07651] years [08141] in building [01129] it.

¹⁴ So Solomon [08010] built [01129] the house [01004], and finished [03615] it.

⁹ So he built [01129] the house [01004], and finished [03615] it; and covered [05603] the house [01004] with beams [01356] and boards [07713] of cedar [0730].

¹³ And king [04428] Solomon [08010] sent [07971] and fetched [03947] Hiram [02438] out of Tyre [06865].

¹⁹ And out of the ground [0127] the LORD [03068] God [0430] formed [03335] every beast [02416] of the field [07704], and every fowl [05775] of the air [08064]; and brought [0935] them unto Adam [0120] to see [07200] what he would call [07121] them: and whatsoever Adam [0120] called [07121] every living [02416] creature [05315], that [01931] was the name thereof [08034].

²⁷ So God [0430] created [01254] man [0120] in his own image [06754], in the image [06754] of God [0430] created [01254] he him; male [02145] and female [05347] created [01254] he them.

²⁶ And God [0430] said [0559], Let us make [06213] man [0120] in our image [06754], after our likeness [01823]: and let them have dominion [07287] over the fish [01710] of the sea [03220], and over the fowl [05775] of the air [08064], and over the cattle [0929], and over all the earth [0776], and over every creeping thing [07431] that creepeth [07430] upon the earth [0776].
²⁷ So God [0430] created [01254] man [0120] in his own image [06754], in the image [06754] of God [0430] created [01254] he him; male [02145] and female [05347] created [01254] he them.