The human in relation to others (Genesis 2:18-25)

The knowledge of good and evil stays with God. God’s first instruction tell us what is not good:

Genesis 2:18-20 (NIV)
¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” ¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

You might expect God to give the human some time to discover his identity, to figure himself out. That’s how we understand life in our Western culture. We think the goal of life is to be my best self. Subtly, we’ve made it all about me.

God says this isn’t good. We find our identity not in isolation but in relationship. God is relational (1 John 4:8, 16), and we’re in God’s image. That’s why isolation feels like torture. We’re designed for relationship: with God, with each other, with the creatures of creation.

The Creator presents the human with the other creatures of creation. Naming them is the first step in finding the meaning of our life, for our vocation is to implement God’s care for them (1:28).

And guess what? The human learns that animals are social creatures too. They have partners. The lesson creates angst, a sense that something is wrong. The isolation of his individualism makes him acutely aware that this is not good.

Now the human is ready for God’s final gift:

Genesis 2:21-23 (NIV)
²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
²³ The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

God’s creative drama blurred the line between “self” and “other”:

• The partner is not another: my bones … my flesh.
• The partner is another: a God-created identity with her own name.

Adam’s response is to declare this paradox: “I recognize her as myself: my bones, my flesh. I recognize her as another person, with her own name, separate from me.”

This shared identity — me, yet other — is the basis for the most intimate and enduring of human relationships:

Genesis 2:24-25 (NIV)
²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Leaving their parents’ households, the couple becomes a household for the next generation. One flesh is both sharing their bodies (sexual union) and sharing their lives as one intertwined being. Like Abraham and Sarah, they may move from other friends and family, but they stick together as they share a life. People feel shame if their private parts are exposed to others, but as one flesh they feel no shame with each other.

Even casual sex creates a bond between people (1 Corinthians 6:16), so I guess it’s understandable that many in our society feel their lives are fragmented. But the imagery of sharing a body as one flesh is also an analogy for the shared life Jesus has with his church, the body through whom the Messiah restores his world (Ephesians 5:31).

For Jesus, Genesis 2:24 represented the ideal God intended from the beginning (Matthew 19:5). Many things threaten that relationship in a world where people want to decide good and evil for themselves. The ultimate threat to our lives and relationships is revealed in the next chapter — death (3:19). Unfaithfulness also undermines the relationship by creating another bond with another person. So does divorce, where one person is unwilling to keep sharing life. Abandonment can do that too. Marriage is God’s gift of shared life, but it’s fragile because we never have control of the other person.

The word helper in verse 18 does not imply Eve was inferior to Adam — unless you want to say God is inferior to us! In the Hebrew Scriptures, helper mostly refers to God (Exodus 18:4; Deuteronomy 33:7, 29; Psalm 70:5; 121:1-2; 124:8; 146:5; Hosea 13:9).

We’ve already been told that God created both male and female with joint and equal authority over creation but not over each other (1:26-28). That equality continues in Genesis 2, in a relationship described as “one” in flesh and life.

So what?

The first two chapters of the Bible give us two perspectives of God’s creation, two sides of the relationship between heaven and earth:

• Genesis 1 is from God’s perspective. God is revealed as the heavenly sovereign whose decrees give shape, significance, fruitfulness, and order to creation.
• Genesis 2 is from our perspective. We wake up with God’s life in our lungs, invited into relationship with God, recipients of his astoundingly rich provision, called to recognize his authority to decide good and evil, with authority over the other creatures and shared life with other humans.

For discussion

1. What does this chapter teach us about our human identity? What does it mean to be human? Where does that identity come from?
2. What about marriage? Is it God’s ideal for everyone? Can you think of any significant Bible characters who were single? What is marriage? Is it safe to commit to shared life with another person who is not under your control?

Going further

For more background, check out these videos from The Bible Project:

• Genesis 1–11 (7:43)
• The Tree of Life (4:52)

or these articles from the blog:

• The kingdom story in Genesis 1–11, (as a podcast).
• Why is the first book in the Bible called Genesis?
• Who is God? (Genesis 1:1-19)
• Who are we? (Genesis 1:20-31)
• Was Eden God’s palace? (Genesis 2:1-14)
• What does it mean to be human? (Genesis 2:15-25)

Recommended commentaries:

• John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone. (2 volumes) Old Testament for Everyone. (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; SPCK, 2010).
• Tremper Longman, III. Genesis. Story of God Bible Commentary.
  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016).
• John H. Walton. Genesis. NIV Application Commentary.
  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001).
• Gordon J. Wenham. Genesis. (2 volumes) Word Biblical Commentary.
  (Dallas: Word Inc., 1987).

The New Testament quotes these verses from Genesis 1–2:

• Genesis 1:3 in 2 Corinthians 4:6
• Genesis 1:27in Matthew 19:4 || Mark 10:6
• Genesis 2:2 in Hebrews 4:4
• Genesis 2:7 in  1 Corinthians 15:45
• Genesis 2:24in Matthew 19:5 || Mark 10:8; 1 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 5:31

Related posts

• The seven days of creation (Genesis 2:1-3)
• The relationships in Genesis (Genesis 2:4)
• Life in God’s garden (Genesis 2:5-17)