"Not Good" (Gen 2:18)

Into and Out of the Garden

¹⁸ YHWH God thought, It is not good for the earthling to be alone

 וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ יְ׳הוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹא־ט֛וֹב הֱי֥וֹת הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְבַדּ֑וֹ

Those who still need convincing that Genesis 2 is providing an alternate take on creation can find it here in v. 18.

Version 1 of the creation story emphasized over and over again how good creation was, and summed things up by saying at the end of the sixth day, “Wow! it was really good" (1:31). Now, for the first time in the Bible, we are seeing something that God evaluates as not good.

As I’ve made clear earlier in this series, these two different versions of the creation story are written in two different voices. That doesn’t necessarily mean that someone assembled them randomly by collecting all the index cards. We’ll see next week that there are some contradictions between the two versions of the story, but I don’t believe the assertion here that something is “not good” is one of them.

Rather, that’s a perspective deliberately introduced into our story by the composer of the Torah. The Genesis 1 version of creation is scientific, orderly — I might say, “publishable.” The Genesis 2 version does not belong in a scientific journal. It is a treatment for a TV miniseries. There must be conflict, something that can drive the plot. “Everyone lived happily ever after” is not a good beginning for a story!

The MacGuffin that will move our mythical story into the real world so the history of the Jews can begin has already been introduced. Now we need some characters to pursue the MacGuffin.

Is there any other reason that it is “not good” for the earthling to be “alone”? It’s worth considering one more reason, a literary one. You remember that in Genesis 1, the earthlings were created in God’s image; Genesis 2 and 3 will make clear that Version 2 is a story about this being who was created in God’s image encroaching on God’s territory. Elsewhere in the Bible, being לבד l’vad ‘alone’ is part of the description of God:

• “YHWH is God; there is none other [מִלְבַדּֽוֹ]” (Deut 4:35)

• “Blessed is YHWH God, the God of Israel, who alone [לְבַדּֽוֹ] does wonders” (Ps 72:18)

Remembering that half of all the biblical occurrences of the name YHWH God occur in Genesis 2–3 and that both Ps 72:18 and 2 Kgs 19:19 combine that name with לבד, it seems reasonable to me that a writer who has employed some of the techniques we’ve seen already in the Bible might have let this word לְבַדּֽוֹ l’vado resonate as a hint at the human challenge to God that we will indeed see as the story continues.

Let me make for him … אֶֽעֱשֶׂהּ־לּ֥וֹ

The Greek text has ποιήσωμεν ‘let us make’, matching 1:26; the Hebrew is singular. Though the Hebrew could also be translated as simply “I will make,” and there is no grammatical clue pushing us in the direction of “let me” (as there is in 1:26), I think our word here follows the same logic as the word there.

If you look carefully at the הּ at the end of אֶֽעֱשֶׂהּ, you will see a little dot in that letter that grammar says doesn’t belong there. Ordinarily such a dot is used to tell readers, “This is not merely indicating a vowel, it is a real letter H.” I can think of two possible reasons for a scribe to put that dot in this word (leaving aside the possibility of a simple mistake):

• It is meant to tell us to take the verb as a cohortative, “let me” verb, a form that is marked in other roots with a ה.

• It is meant to hint at a 3^rd feminine singular ending: God will be making her as an עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ.

And now we must discuss what exactly YHWH is going to make.

a helper matching him עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃

The easy answer is that YHWH will make the earthling “a helpmeet.” The problems with that answer are (1) no one actually knows what a “helpmeet” is, and (2) as the late David Clines once asked, “What Does Eve Do To Help?” So let’s spend some time with the Hebrew words here.