An Help Meet For Him

In the account of the creation we read, “And I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten, that it was not good that the man should be alone; wherefore, I will make an help meet for him.”  I would have expected the next verses to be these: “And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and I took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in the stead thereof; And the rib which I, the Lord God, had taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man.” But there are two other verses in between the declaration that man shouldn’t be alone and the creation of woman. They read this way: “And out of the ground I, the Lord God, formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and commanded that they should come unto Adam, to see what he would call them; and they were also living souls; for I, God, breathed into them the breath of life, and commanded that whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that should be the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but as for Adam, there was not found an help meet for him.” (Moses 3:18-22). The Lord had every living creature come to Adam and he named them. This shows first great respect that Adam had for these animals as he took the time to give them each a name. But it also shows that Adam realized with each one that it wasn’t the “help meet” that he needed. He was perhaps hoping with each one that it was the companion the Lord had in store for him, but after interacting with every living creature he surely realized that none of them were the proper help meet for him.

Only after this experience with the animals did the Lord create a woman from Adam’s side that would be the right help meet for him. The animals were certainly to be respected and appreciated, but the Lord wanted a woman for Adam who would be more deeply connected with him. After Eve was created from one of his ribs, Adam said this: “This I know now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man” (Moses 3:23). It is interesting to consider where the ribs are in a human body. They are bones that wrap from the back (connected to the spine) to the front (connected to the sternum). And so I think we can say that they are on the side of man, and Adam and Eve were to walk side by side through their lives together. This is even more apparent in the French translation: “Je pris une de ses côtes et refermai la chair à sa place. Moi, le Seigneur Dieu, je formai une femme de la côte que j’avais prise de l’homme.” The word for rib is côte, and the word for side in Frech is côté, nearly the same word. It is also interesting that the ribcage protects the heart in a human, and so by removing a rib from Adam it is as if the Lord was opening up his heart to love and cherish Eve who was to be his equal companion.

            I think that this story also highlights the agency that the Lord was gave to Adam. Throughout the creation story before this, the Lord named the objects he was creating. For example, “And I, God, called the light Day; and the darkness, I called Night;… And I, God, called the firmament Heaven… And I, God, called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, called I the Sea” (Moses 2:5, 8, 10). And yet with the animals, he gave that responsibility to Adam to name them. Adam was thus very early on, even before Eve was created, given agency to start to choose things for himself. And though we might think that agency wasn’t involved in getting Eve for a help meet, at least in some sense it was: he reviewed all of the animals first and knew they were not sufficient to be the kind of companion he needed. Only of Eve could he say, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” She was indeed his choice of companion, and this story reminds us that when God put man on the earth, He also gave them the power to make choices. These words of the Lord to Adam and Eve are surely meant for all of us in our mortal journey: “Thou mayest choose for thyself” (Moses 3:17).