Names but No Helper (Gen 2:20)

Into and Out of the Garden

²⁰ The earthling named every livestock animal, every sky bird, and every field animal

וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכָל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה

The creeping things are still missing from our story, but this time the “cattle” (b’hemah) from Day Six are included. BHS does not present any variation from this in the ancient translations, and I haven’t spotted any. Is this difference significant at all? And if it’s not, what does that tell us about variation in the text of the Bible?

If this is a deliberate addition, the one thing it implies is that the earthling is doing more than he was originally called on to do. YHWH God called on him to name the (wild) animals and the birds, but he actually names the domestic animals as well.

Another possible reason for the inclusion is that the closer one comes to domestication, the closer one comes to civilization. Our verse is about to remind us that of the ostensible, if ludicrous, reason YHWH is bringing the animals to see what the earthling would call them: The earthling is alone, and that is not a good thing. We’re not told why. Some of those who comment on v. 18 suggest that the earthling is “lonely,” but aloneness and loneliness are not the same thing.

But for Adam … וּלְאָדָ֕ם

I promised more on the phrase עזר כנגדו when we originally discussed it, the only other time in the Bible the phrase is used. It’s time to do that now, but first this news bulletin. The earthling has a name! Or maybe he doesn’t — let’s discuss.

I have been calling this person “the earthling.” As you remember, in v. 5 we learned that there was as yet “no one to work the earth,” that is, the soil — no adam to work the adamah. Except for that verse and 1:26, which we translated as “Let’s make an earthling,” this creature has always been called ha-adam, “the earthling.” This time, the preposition ל, indicating that no one was found l’adam — l- meaning “for” — does not include the definite article, which would be shown simply by a slightly different vowel:

• וּלְאָדָ֕ם u-l’adam — a shewa vowel simply connects “to” to adam

• לָֽאָדָם֒ la-adam (Exod 4:11) — a qamatz vowel indicates that “the” is here

(For more details on this, see Lessons 3, 5, and 6 of my Hebrew course.)

Theoretically, then, this is the first place where ha-adam ‘the earthling’ has become Adam, the named character who plays the first human being in our story.

Not so fast! “Adam” has already appeared several times in the Greek translation of our story. Let’s chart it out:

• v. 15 הָֽאָדָ֑ם / τὸν ἄνθρωπον

• v. 16 הָֽאָדָ֖ם / τῷ Αδαμ

• v. 18 הָֽאָדָ֖ם / τὸν ἄνθρωπον

• v. 19 הָ֣אָדָ֔ם / τὸν Αδαμ

• v. 19 הָֽאָדָ֛ם / Αδαμ

• v. 20 הָֽאָדָ֜ם / Αδαμ

• v. 20 וּלְאָדָ֕ם / τῷ δὲ Αδαμ

You don’t have to be able to read Hebrew or Greek either to see that while the Masoretic text calls this character ha-adam for the first six of these references, the Septuagint calls him ton anthropon ‘the human’ just twice and names him Adam the other five times.

The truth is that he will not be unambiguously “Adam” until in the Hebrew text until 4:25. Your mileage may differ! The King James Version has already started calling ha-adam Adam in 2:19, perhaps influenced by the Greek version. I have followed the rules of Hebrew grammar that I teach to my elementary students and called him “the earthling” at the beginning of v. 20 and Adam here at the end.

Just keep in mind that this is to some extent a translation choice. None of the ancient translators were looking at the vowels that we see today in the Hebrew text, since they had not yet been invented. I tend to presume that the vowels that were fixed in the Middle Ages are the ones that were used originally unless there seems to be something egregiously wrong, but that is only an assumption. The Greek translator may have had a tradition of how these words were pronounced or may have been offering a best guess.

… no helper matching him was found. לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃