Sermon Tone Analysis

18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him

the woman is presented wholly as his partner and counterpart; nothing is yet said of her as childbearer.

God creates a new thing to be a help-meet for man

She is valued for herself alone

The Hebrew term used here, ezer, refers broadly to rendering aid

While used to refer to subordinates, the word does not necessarily imply inferiority

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as iChrist is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

God is called Israel’s helper

9  He destroys you, O Israel,

for you are against me, against your helper.

The noun translated “helper” or “partner” does not suggest subordination

Elsewhere the term is used of God as Help

 Then the spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the captains, and he said,

Thine are we, David,

And on thy side, thou son of Jesse:

Peace, peace be unto thee,

And peace be to thine helpers;

For thy God helpeth thee.

10  Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me!

O LORD, be my helper!”

4  Behold, God is my helper;

the Lord is the upholder of my life.

5  He will return the evil to my enemies;

in your faithfulness put an end to them.

1  I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

2  My help comes from the LORD,

who made heaven and earth.

or of military allies

4  because of the day that is coming to destroy

all the Philistines,

to cut off from Tyre and Sidon

every helper that remains.

For the LORD is destroying the Philistines,

the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor.

9  Cush was her strength;

Egypt too, and that without limit;

Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

The adjective “meet” (translated “suitable,” “comparable,” or “corresponding”

stresses that woman, unlike the animals (Gen.

2:20), can be truly one with man

enjoy full fellowship and partnership in humanity’s God-given task (Gen.

1:27–28) of rule and dominion.

Furthermore, she is to be suitable for him

The Hebrew word for “suitable” suggests something that completes a polarity,

the north pole is “suitable” to the south pole

One without the other is incomplete

The woman is deemed by the divine mind “a helper suitable for him.”

“Suitable” (kěnegdô, lit., “like what is in front of him”)

indicates a correspondence between the man and the woman.

The focus is on the equality of the two in terms of their essential constitution

Man and woman share in the “human” sameness that cannot be found elsewhere in creation among the beasts

In every way the woman shares in the same features of personhood as does the man

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

this equality of the man and woman as image bearers has priority over their differences in sexual roles

although both were crucial to realizing the intended blessing.

There is no sense derived from the word linguistically or from the context of the garden narrative that the woman is a lesser person because her role differs

In the case of the biblical model, the “helper” is an indispensable “partner” (REB) required to achieve the divine commission

“Helper,” as we have seen from its Old Testament usage, means the woman will play an integral part, in this case, in human survival and success.

What the man lacks, the woman accomplishes

As Paul said concisely, the man was not made for the woman “but the woman for the man”

The woman makes it possible for the man to achieve the blessing that he otherwise could not do “alone.

And, obviously, the woman cannot achieve it apart from the man.

Divine “help” (ʿāzar) and “blessing” are found in parallel in Jacob’s benediction for Joseph

25  by the God of your father who will help you,

by the Almighty who will bless you

with blessings of heaven above,

Similarly, the woman is the provision of divine “help” for the man so that the Lord will bless them as they achieve the mandate

Moreover, the dignity of the woman is heightened by the monologue of God’s creative contemplation

This stands in opposition to the creation of the man and the animals, which are described in the third person.

narration of the woman’s creation explores the similarity and dissimilarity between the woman and man and the animals

It shows the uniqueness of the woman and also the singular relationship shared by man and woman.

God “formed” both the man and the creatures out of the same substance (“from the ground”)

woman to distinguish her from the animals; her source is traced to the man himself and not to the “ground.

She is the first of creation to come from a living being

God creates the man first and derives the woman from the man to insure that she is his equal in substance and to maintain the unity of the human family

Thus they enjoy a unity despite their sexual difference, and this interdependence is explicit in the expression “one flesh

So the woman is presented wholly as his partner and counterpart; nothing is yet said of her as childbearer.

She is valued for herself alone

God creates a new thing to be a help-meet for man—not so much the woman as the seed of the woman.

She is called Adam’s “helper” (ʿēzer), which defines the role that the woman will play

ʿēzer in 2:18 anticipates in an unexpected way how Eve will be a “helper” to her husband

She will be instrumental in providing salvation for fallen Adam by her “seed,” who will defeat the serpent

15  I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

Hebrew zeraʿ (“seed”) may be a wordplay with the similar-sounding ʿēzer (“helper”).

Since God is said to exercise the role of “helper,” the term does not diminish the person who holds that role.

If anything, the divine nuance of the term “helper” in the Pentateuch gives special dignity

7 And this he said of Judah:

“Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah,

and bring him in to his people.

With your hands contend for him,