Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Donald Vance <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

Your colleague is correct. The Hebrew phrase means "a helper/partner  
(or some such) who corresponds to him," (i.e., suitable for him). This  
is actually what the KJV language means as well: "a help meet  
(=suitable) for him."

Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
donaldrvance AT mac.com

On Feb 20, 2010, at 1:27 AM, Dianne Burke <biblestudy.burke AT gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I was discussing this verse with a colleague and he mentioned  
> something that
> I can't quite understand and just wanted to verify if he's right and  
> ask for
> your understanding of the Hebrew.  Basically he says that "help  
> meet" is not
> the proper rendering in Gensis 2:18.
>
> My colleague says that the word is not "help-meet".   He goes on to  
> say that
> "God said he would make a help, "meet for" the man, i.e. matching up  
> to him
> and his needs."
>
> In my limited knowledge of Hebrew, I said help meet is from one  
> hebrew word:
>
> 5828
>
> 05828 `ezer {ay'-zer}
>
> from 05826; TWOT - 1598a; n m
>
> AV - help 19, help meet 2; 21
>
> 1) help, succour
> 1a) help, succour
> 1b) one who helps
>
> My colleague's response was to say that's a shame.  He says that  
> there is an
> error in the English-Hebrew indexing of the text in the Online  
> Bible. It
> fails to show the other Hebrew word that's there at the end of 2:18  
> - there
> definitely is one!
>
> He also says that as a secondary proof of the point,that I should  
> note that
> there are no italics at that point in the KJV, if "meet for him" or  
> even
> just "for him" were an insertion into the English not backed by  
> Hebrew, the
> KJV would have put those words in italics.
>
> He goes on to say that the Hebrew for "help meet for him" comprises  
> two
> word-forms, עזר כנגדו, which transliterate (note: Hebrew reads
> right-to-left) as 'ezr kngdw'. Here 'ezr' is the word "help" that  
> you listed
> the lexicon summary for, and 'kngdw' is a compound of the prefix 'k'  
> meaning
> "as", the word 'ngd' (5048) and the suffix 'w' meaning "him".
>
> He showed me that the word 'ngd' is used as the OLB lexicon lists:
>
> 05048 נגד neged neh'- ghed
>
> from 05046; ;{ See TWOT on 1289 @@ "1289a"}
>
> AV-before, against, in the presence, about; 23
>
> subst
> 1) what is conspicuous, what is in front of
>
> adv
> 2) in front of, straight forward, before, in sight of
> 3) in front of oneself, straightforward
> 4) before your face, in your view or purpose
>
> with prep
> 5) what is in front of, corresponding to
> 6) in front of, before
> 7) in the sight or presence of
> 8) parallel to
> 9) over, for
> 10) in front, opposite
> 11) at a distance
>
> prep
> 12) from the front of, away from
> 13) from before the eyes of, opposite to, at a distance from
> 14) from before, in front of
> 15) as far as the front of
>
> Then he concludes by saying that the last Hebrew word-form in  
> Genesis 2:18,
> though sadly not indexed by the OLB, has a sense along the lines of  
> "as
> in-front-of him", which the KJV has given as "meet for him".
>
> I have never heard anything like this before and I was wondering if  
> you guys
> could help me understand Genesis 2:18.
>
> I look forward to your help.
>
> Dianne Burke
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