2:18
We now come to God’s plans for the social side of man. Note “The Lord God said”, all that we read about in this section is God’s idea, it is His plans being fulfilled. “It is not good for man to be alone”. We were not created to be alone. This does not mean we never have times of being alone, Jesus sought solitude to spend time in prayer, but we were created as social beings. “I will make a helper fit for him”. It is interesting that we do not then immediately move on to woman, but there is the process of Adam meeting the animals to go through first.
2:19
Man had been formed out of the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7), and all the animals and birds were also formed out of the ground. As noted before, there is a commonality between mankind and other animals. There is also a unique difference. All the animals and birds are brought to man by God for the man to name them. Now “name” in Hebrew thinking has a much deeper meaning than simply a label. So it seems fair to assume that this means much more than simply giving a label to each creature. We could see this as a God given mandate for man’s scientific endeavour (and other forms of exploration).
To me this verse also seems to weigh heavily against the six literal days approach. If the man was to name all the birds and animals it would have been one ultra busy day! The commonality between man and the animals also seems to imply that there is no need to react against the idea of common descent (this doesn’t mean that we are descended from animals, just that there is no theological problem if we are). By the way, I don’t “believe” in evolution. A summary of my position is I reject six day creationism on Biblical grounds, and I reject evolution on scientific grounds. (This doesn’t mean evolution is complete nonsense, just that we have made an idol out of it, largely because some see it as a way of avoiding the need for God.)
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