The Calling We Missed

A Simple Word Study

I work as a campus minister with a Canadian para-church organization. Shortly after spring exams each year, students in our region gather at Scripture Camp for communal inductive Bible study, usually totalling upwards of 40 hours in Scripture over the course of the week. One year, I was a teacher guiding students in the Genesis track, diving deep into Genesis 1–11. This brought us to Genesis 2:18, a verse that may well make the Mount Rushmore of texts historically misunderstood by many hierarchicalists. The idea that women are men’s helpers or, at least, that a wife is her husband’s helper, comes from this passage. It has traditionally been argued that describing women as men’s helpers implies a subordinate position for women, placing them under men’s authority.

It is amazing what a simple word study can do; the range of a word’s denotations and connotations can begin to be understood by seeing how it’s utilized in context. So when the question of what it meant for women to be men’s “helpers” inevitably came up in our study, I grabbed my phone, went to Blue Letter Bible (a free online resource/app),^[1] looked up all 19 verses outside of Genesis 2 where the word ezer (the Hebrew word behind “helper”) appears, and read them aloud, sometimes including a few surrounding verses. I didn’t provide any commentary.

As I paused after reading, you could see the students comprehending how different their concept of a “helper” was from the Hebrew term. After a moment, I asked, “What did you notice?” It dawned on one young man immediately: “Oh, it’s military help.” It was not difficult to discern.

Three things became immediately apparent to the group. First, they realized that throughout the Old Testament, the one identified as an ezer is almost always God, eliminating the possibility that the term implies subordination. Second, these occurrences are mostly military in nature; the term is used with military images to describe God’s rescue and deliverance. God’s help is often described as a shield (e.g., Ps 115:9–11, Exod 18:4) or a rescuing warrior (e.g., Deut 33:26–29). Third, in the three occurrences outside Genesis 2 where the ezer does not refer to God, they all still refer to some form of military support. It was clear to the students that the term had teeth.

Are Only Women Meant to be Helpers?

My own revelation had come in a similar situation several years earlier. As an undergrad involved in the same campus ministry I now work for, we did a “Dig-In,” a miniature Scripture Camp spanning a weekend in the middle of the semester. That year, we studied Genesis 1–3 and learned that ezer in Genesis 2 means something like strong rescuer, deliverer, or strengthening companion.

As an application, my campus minister asked us to reflect on those in our lives who had been an ezer for us. Although I thought this was a fine consideration, at the time I believed it went beyond the scope of the text. I thought only women were helpers, but the teacher generalized it, implying humans are meant to be helpers for other humans, regardless of sex or marital status. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend the time that weekend determining the extent of those who are helpers—but the application question inspired me to investigate more deeply.

Though I reflected on it off and on throughout the years, there is no better learning experience than teaching. When researching to teach the Genesis track at Scripture Camp, and as our inductive discussions ebbed and flowed throughout that week, the answers slowly came into focus. It turns out my campus minister was right! There are indeed several reasons to think the woman was only the first example of a helper and that readers are meant to leave Genesis 2 understanding that all humans are to be helpers for other humans.^[2]

First, though this is not commonly recognized, Adam’s sex is unknown until Genesis 2:23. Sure, most English translations use the word “man” or sometimes the personal name “Adam”—even though it doesn’t appear until Genesis 4:25—but before that he’s only described gender-neutrally as “the human.” This description is grammatically masculine and so requires grammatically masculine pronouns, but this is only a grammatical construct. At the point where the need for a helper is identified, we aren’t even aware of Adam’s sex!

Second, on a theological level, Adam plays an archetypal role for humans generally. (You’ll find people using this to argue for male leadership, but mutualism should be the implication: whatever authority Adam has is an archetypal example of the authority all humans possess.) The fact he needs a helper implies humans, regardless of sex, need helpers.

Third, the problem the ezer was meant to solve is solitude (not singleness). What is the particular problem with solitude that the text has in mind? When I posed this question to the students at Scripture Camp, one student responded thoughtfully, “Well, an ezer is metaphorically military help and, at root, military help keeps friends from death. The Tree poses a risk of death!” That student was onto something! Since the risk of death from eating the forbidden fruit was mentioned just one verse earlier, the problem is probably that humans, when alone, will be more prone to taking the forbidden fruit. The students at Scripture Camp also noticed a remarkable consistency: ezer tends to occur in a context where life and death are either implicitly or explicitly juxtaposed (e.g., Ps 70, Ps 146), as you would expect from so many military images. Genesis 2 is no exception: with the Trees before them, humanity has a choice between life and death (Gen 2:16–17). Rescue from death is exactly what an ezer is designed for.

This view makes more sense once Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is understood. Most likely, this tree represents the fullness of wisdom, broadly encompassing everything from morality to welfare more generally. I am convinced God made the tree for humanity to be given the knowledge of good and evil; that is, to give us the wisdom to know what is good and bad so we can live upright and holistically healthy lives, individually and communally. The tree was no trick! The question, however, is this: would we receive the knowledge of good and evil from God through trusting him and not taking the fruit, or would we take it for ourselves, claiming the right to be the arbiter of what is good and bad, wise and unwise, over and above God?

The problem that solitude presents is that humans, without a faithful community, will tend toward unhealthy choices and rebellion against God. We need communal help! We could even say we need the church. The animals were not suitable helpers (Gen 2:19–20) because animals can’t help humans choose the way of life and wisdom: the way of trust—that is, faith—in God.

Whether male or female, we all tend toward sin, choosing to distrust God and define good and bad ourselves. We all need a loving, faithful community to help us. We all need an ezer (or several). We are all called to be an ezer.

A Deep Call

For the longest time, I assumed Genesis 2:18 meant the husband was the leader of the family and the wife was the subordinate helper. Yet, as a man, I’m also called to be an ezer, a helper—a strengthening companion—to those around me, helping them choose the way of life over death. That’s the type of call that makes me feel like I could charge through a brick wall. What a powerful calling! To be faithful to it is to communally seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Mich 6:8), to love neighbour as self (Matt 22:34–40), and to defend the poor and needy (Prov 31:8–9). This is a call to step up and live like Christ, the one who calls us to the fullness of life (John 10:10).

Sadly, this galvanizing call was not given to me and, truthfully, neither has it been given to women. Women have been taught that to be a helper is to be a glorified (and often not-so-glorified) maidservant, and men have rejected, ironically enough, one of the more powerful and so-called masculine images of what love looks like. How, then, could we respond faithfully to our calling?

But because of Jesus, the ultimate ezer, there is no need to be enslaved by traditional misinterpretations. Knowing our calling, we can, through the help of the Spirit, be faithful to it, doing the good works God prepared in advance for us to do as God’s handiwork (Eph 2:10). When a man needs to come alongside a lonely person and give emotional support, being emotionally mature and vulnerable themselves, he can do so through the Spirit, for the man’s calling is to be an ezer. When a woman needs to step up and lead against corruption, injustice, and ineptitude, she can do so through the Spirit, for the woman’s calling is to be an ezer. We are invited into the freedom of the easy yoke of Christ: to be faith-reviving, wisdom-sharing, community-building, wholeness-producing, hope-holding, death-challenging, life-bringing helpers. This is a calling—a blessing—that we don’t want to miss.

[1] Other free resources include https://stepbible.org and https://netbible.org. BibleProject also has a short, free word study course (without needing to learn Greek or Hebrew), “Art of Biblical Words.” See https://bibleproject.com/classroom/.

[2] Detailed argumentation for the points I make here can be found at Aaron K. Husband. “Neighborly Love in Genesis 2:18–25: The Root of the Second Great Commandment.” McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 24 (2022–2023) 3–32, http://mcmasterdivinity.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/24.MJTM_.3-32-Husband.pdf.

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