Loading...
It is not good that the man should be alone - לבדו lebaddo ; only himself. I will make him a help meet for him; כנגדו עזר ezer kenegdo, a help, a counterpart of himself, one formed from him, and a perfect resemblance of his person. If the word be rendered scrupulously literally, it signifies one like, or as himself, standing opposite to or before him. And this implies that the woman was to be a perfect resemblance of the man, possessing neither inferiority nor superiority, but being in all things like and equal to himself. As man was made a social creature, it was not proper that he should be alone; for to be alone, i.e. without a matrimonial companion, was not good. Hence we find that celibacy in general is a thing that is not good, whether it be on the side of the man or of the woman. Men may, in opposition to the declaration of God, call this a state of excellence and a state of perfection; but let them remember that the word of God says the reverse.
- XIII. The Naming of the Animals
Here man‘s intellectual faculties proceed from the passive and receptive to the active and communicative stage. This advance is made in the review and designation of the various species of animals that frequent the land and skies.
A new and final need of man is stated in Genesis 2:18. The Creator himself, in whose image he was made, had revealed himself to him in language. This, among many other effects, awakened the social affection. This affection was the index of social capacity. The first step towards communication between kindred spirits was accomplished when Adam heard and understood spoken language. Beyond all this God knew what was in the man whom he had formed. And he expresses this in the words, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” He is formed to be social, to hold converse, not only with his superior, but also with his equal. As yet he is but a unit, an individual. He needs a mate, with whom he may take sweet counsel. And the benevolent Creator resolves to supply this want. “I will make him a helpmeet for him” - one who may not only reciprocate his feelings, but take an intelligent and appropriate part in his active pursuits.
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18. CC 14.1
Read in context »And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18. FLB 251.1
Read in context »I have often read these words: “Marriage is a lottery.” Some act as if they believed the statement, and their married life testifies that it is such to them. But true marriage is not a lottery. Marriage was instituted in Eden. After the creation of Adam, the Lord said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet”—suitable—“for him.” When the Lord presented Eve to Adam, angels of God were witnesses to the ceremony. But there are few couples who are completely united when the marriage ceremony is performed. The form of words spoken over the two who take the marriage vow does not make them a unit. In their future life is to be the blending of the two in wedlock. It may be made a really happy union, if each will give to the other true heart affection. HP 203.2
But time strips marriage of the romance with which imagination had clothed it, and then the thought finds entrance into the mind through Satan's suggestions, “We do not love each other as we supposed.” Expel it from the mind. Do not linger over it. Let each, forgetful of self, refuse to entertain the ideas that Satan would be glad to have you cherish. He will work to make you suspicious, jealous of every little thing that shall furnish the least occasion, in order to alienate your affections from each other.... When the romance is gone, let each think, not after a sentimental order, how he or she can make the married life what God would be pleased to have it. HP 203.3
Life is a precious gift of God and is not to be wasted in selfish regrets or more open indifference and dislike. Let the husband and wife talk things all over together. Renew the early attentions to each other, acknowledge your faults to each other, but in this work be very careful that the husband does not take it upon himself to confess his wife's faults or the wife her husband's. Be determined that you will be all that it is possible for you to be to each other, and the bonds of wedlock will be the most desirable of ties. HP 203.4
Your home may be a symbol of heaven. HP 203.5
Read in context »God Prepared Man's First Home—The Eden home of our first parents was prepared for them by God Himself. When He had furnished it with everything that man could desire, He said: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” ... AH 25.1
The Lord was pleased with this last and noblest of all His creatures, and designed that he should be the perfect inhabitant of a perfect world. But it was not His purpose that man should live in solitude. He said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”1 AH 25.2
God Himself gave Adam a companion. He provided “an help meet for him”—a helper corresponding to him—one who was fitted to be his companion, and who could be one with him in love and sympathy. Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self; showing the close union and the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it.” “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one.”2 AH 25.3
First Marriage Performed by God—God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for its originator the Creator of the universe. “Marriage is honourable”; it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man's social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.3 AH 25.4
Read in context »