And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
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Genesis 2:16-20
Tyndale Open Study Notes (CC BY-SA 4.0).
2:18-23 As human creation was the climax of ch 1, so human intimacy is the high point of ch 2. God’s concern for mutual human support and companionship finds no parallel in ancient Near Eastern literature.
2:18 It is not good: This is God’s first negative assessment of an otherwise excellent creation (1:31). The Lord God is portrayed as a father who obtains a bride for his son (cp. ch 24). • The answer to the man’s need is a helper who is just right for him; she is his perfect complement, made in the same image of God (1:26-27), given the same commission (1:28; 2:15), and obligated by the same prohibition (2:17). The man cannot fulfill his created purpose alone.
Other Bible passages linked to this one, most cited first.
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Authorship: the book itself or Christian tradition. Approximate dates, as in Carson and Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, and Longman and Dillard, An Introduction to the Old Testament.