Our vocabulary today is much different than that of the original Old Testament. While these two words seem very similar, I feel there is a difference, and that’s why God chose “help meet.”
Commonly, these two phrases are used interchangeably. The KJV uses “help meet” in Genesis 2:18 and 2:20, so that is the phrase I use, but often someone attempts to correct me with “help mate.”
The Hebrew translation is “Ezer kenegdo.” This is a complex phrase to get fully translated into English. However, we can still understand God’s plan for wives as the help meet to their husbands.
What comes to mind when you think of the word “mate”?
Google defines it as “fellow member or joint occupant of a specified thing.” Examples include teammates, roommates, and shipmates, such as Naval use. Would you use the same word “mate” to show the relation to a teammate as a wife to her husband? I sure hope not. What is more misleading is that Google also offers an informal example of the word mate: “A person’s husband, wife, or sexual partner.” Here is where that definition fails and misleads.
God did not intend for us to have sexual partners outside of marriage. Sexual relations with people we are unmarried to is a sin. Having sex with someone does not make them your spouse, nor does it give someone all the benefits of marriage. I think this is easily understood and agreed upon.
When we use mate as simply “a companion, friend, or partner,” it gets used for both the husband and the wife. We use it in the context of a match or a pair. We say our spouse is our soulmate. A soulmate is “a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.” This sounds nice, but it does not grasp the beauty, importance, or biblical marriage plan as God intended. The term soulmate does not equal marriage. It also does not keep the standard of marriage as God set it to be: one man, one woman, one lifetime.
If we look at the word “meet,” Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines it this way: “fit, suitable, proper, qualified.”
This is the idea God had when He created Eve. He did not just make a woman. He made that woman to be exactly what Adam needed. She was fit for him, suitable to him, proper for him, and qualified to be his wife because God made her to be so. The same is still true. God has made each of us and knows exactly what we need. This is why it is vital to get His will for your spouse. Often, those that get married out of lust do not last. We must seek the will of God for this significant decision.
God only uses this term for the wife to her husband, not the husband to the wife. That does not mean he is not to help and support his wife. God deals with that later, but here, He focuses on Adam’s need, Eve’s creation, and bringing them together to be one flesh.
Ezer kenegdo is best translated as ezer, meaning to help/aid/rescue. It gives the idea of being strong. It is a military term. For someone to help/aid/rescue/be an ally, they have to be strong. They are not necessarily stronger than the one they are assisting; it is not a competition or comparison. But when the two work together, there is victory. Kenegdo can be explained as “opposite of or corresponding to.” This makes sense. Eve was the opposite of Adam. She was not another man. She had strengths, abilities, thoughts, and desires different from Adam’s. But together, they complemented each other. And in that, Eve met Adam’s need for a companion and a completer. She was not there just for companionship; he had that in the animals, but God made it clear that He created Adam with a need for something more. Eve was the answer.
This does not make Eve inferior to or less than Adam in any way. God made them both in His image. He loved them both. He had a plan for them both. It wasn’t until after the sin in the Garden that God placed Eve in submission to her husband. His love for them never changed. There’s grace in Genesis 3. But there was now a need for order that was not there when sin did not exist.
God is still the same loving God. He still loves women as much as men. Women are still not inferior to men. We are created in His image. Please do not fall into this lie. We just have different roles and responsibilities by His divine design. We still are made to complement our husbands. This can be a beautiful picture of God’s grace if we let it. Biblical submission is strength, not suppression.
There is a difference between help meet and help mate.
Let’s choose to uphold and trust God with the beautiful design of marriage as He created it. Seek to fulfill the role He gave you to honor and glorify Him. May we not be women who seek to do what men can do but rather what they can’t.
Stay in the Word, stay close to the Shepherd, and let Him lead you in paths of righteousness.
With Hope in His Service,
Heather
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