What Does it Mean that Eve is a “Help Meet” for Adam?

The Know

People throughout history have often used the narrative of the Fall in Genesis to justify the marginalization of women. However, viewing the narrative of the Fall in connection with the Hebrew words used in the biblical Creation account provides a more balanced view, showing both men and women what it means for Eve to be a helper “meet” for Adam.

In Genesis 2:18, God states that it is not at all good for Adam to be alone, and thus God provides for him a partner. The King James Bible references this partner as a “help meet for him,” and the word “helpmeet” or “helpmate” has come to mean someone’s companion, especially a spouse.1 However, this phrase is much more meaningful and significant than people often realize. The Hebrew phrase translated there as “help meet for him” is ezer kanegdo. The word ezer means “help” or “helper” but not in the way one might think.2 It is never used to refer to someone who helps with menial tasks, as important as such work is.3 Rather, it is used to refer to someone who helps another person out of a difficult or desperate situation.4 The ancient Greek word used here in Genesis 2:18 is boethon, meaning such things as rescuer or essential contributor. Often, ezer even refers to divine or extraordinary help, not just mortal or human help.5 So, as the words ezer and boethon indicate, God informs Adam that he needs help, and that he requires it crucially and desperately.6

God will soon provide Adam with this help, but He first wants to teach Adam something about that help in a profound way. Genesis 2:19 states that God brings each animal to Adam to see what he will call them. Apparently, Adam assumed that one of these creatures must be the “help meet for him,” because after naming each animal, he discovered that among them “there was not found an help meet for him” (2:20).7

Realistically, no animal could be the “help meet” for Adam because the word kanegdo, translated as “meet for him” in the King James Bible, can also be translated as “corresponding to him.”8  Nothing God had made from the dust of the ground could be the helper corresponding to Adam, so God had to make this helper from an elemental part of Adam himself (Genesis 2:21-22). When Adam sees the woman, he responds, “Finally! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! This one will be called woman, for out of man was this one taken.”9  Having named all the useful animals and yet finding neither an essential helper equal to nor genetically compatible with him, Adam finally receives a helper whom he sees as corresponding to him and accordingly calls her isha (Hebrew “woman”). The Hebrew, in fact, affirms that this particular creation properly corresponds to Adam, because isha, “woman,” is simply the feminine form of the Hebrew word ish, “man.”10

That the woman is the help most fit to save Adam from his desperate situation is even more pronounced when one considers the name Adam gives to her later. Eve is the English version of the Hebrew word chava, (pronounced hava) which scholars believe is likely related to the similar Hebrew word for “living” (chaya).11 The relationship between these two words is implied in Genesis 3:20 where the woman is named “Eve,” because she is the mother of all “living.” This relationship is even clearer in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of most of the Hebrew Bible) where the text explicitly states that Adam names her “Life” (Zōḕ). Thus, Eve is the essential and eternal helper equal to Adam, who helps all humankind by being “the mother of all living.”

The Why

Understanding the text in this way gives greater insight into Eve’s role as a crucial helper to Adam. President Russell M. Nelson has said, “Under the direction of the Father, Jehovah was the creator… But, in spite of the power and glory of creation to that point, the final link in the chain of creation was still missing. All the purposes of the world and all that was in the world would be brought to naught without woman—a keystone in the priesthood arch of creation.”12 Eve’s help to Adam was not just incidental; it was essential to God’s plan.

President Nelson continues, “Adam and Eve were joined together in marriage for time and for all eternity by the power of that everlasting priesthood. Eve came as a partner, to build and to organize the bodies of mortal men. She was designed by Deity to cocreate and nurture life, that the great plan of the Father might achieve fruition. Eve ‘was the mother of all living’ (Moses 4:26). She was the first of all women.”13

Rather than simply helping Adam with menial or worldly tasks, as one might initially suppose, it is clear that Eve provided a transcendent divine kind of help to Adam, and to all humanity, by becoming the one through whom all humankind would be born into mortality. In addition, Eve worked alongside Adam (see Moses 5:1), raised the children she had with Adam (see Moses 5:2), prayed and worshipped with Adam (see Moses 5:4–6), and taught her children the gospel (see Moses 5:12).14 Truly, she was a “help meet” for Adam, a necessary helper--measured to, corresponding to, and equal to Adam—in all they would do together.