Genesis 2:18

Summary

Yehovah Elohim declares that the man's aloneness is not good, and states his intention to make for him a helper. The Hebrew phrasing frames this as a negative evaluation of a state of being, followed by a first-person declaration of future action.

Key words

• lo tov (H3808 + H2896A) — the negation lo ("not") plus the adjective tov ("good") forms a predicate: "[it is] not good." No verb "to be" appears; Hebrew allows a nominal/adjectival clause.
• heyot (H1961) — infinitive construct of the verb "to be." It functions as the grammatical subject of the clause "not good," literally "the being of the man alone [is] not good."
• levaddo (H9005 + H0905H + H9033) — preposition le ("to") + noun bad ("separateness/part") + suffix "his." This is an idiomatic construction meaning "in his aloneness," i.e., "alone."
• 'e'eseh (H6213H) — qal imperfect, first-person singular, "I will make." The imperfect aspect marks an action not yet completed, here future or intentional.
• kenegdo (H9004 + H5048 + H9033) — preposition ke ("like/as") + neged ("in front of, corresponding to") + suffix "his." Together with ezer ("helper," H5828), the phrase describes a helper who stands "corresponding to him" or "opposite him."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative form vayomer ("and he said"), continuing the story sequence, followed by the divine subject Yehovah Elohim. The core statement is built without a linking verb: lo tov ("not good") functions as the predicate applied to the infinitive clause heyot ha'adam levaddo ("the being of the man in his aloneness"). Hebrew here uses an infinitive as an abstract noun-equivalent — literally "the-man's-being alone is not good" — rather than a full finite clause with a subject and conjugated verb.

The second half shifts to first-person imperfect, 'e'eseh ("I will make"), stating the intended remedy. The object lo ("for him") uses the same preposition-plus-suffix pattern seen in levaddo. The noun ezer ("helper") is modified by the compound expression kenegdo, which combines "like" and "in front of/corresponding to" with a third-person suffix. This construction does not simply mean "helper" in a subordinate sense; the neged root carries a spatial notion of facing or standing opposite, which the single English word "helper" does not convey on its own.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'e'eseh ("I will make," singular) as ποιήσωμεν ("let us make," plural subjunctive), and the Vulgate similarly gives faciamus ("let us make," plural), where the Hebrew verb is grammatically singular. For kenegdo, the LXX uses κατ' αὐτόν ("according to him"), the Vulgate uses simile sibi ("similar to himself"), and modern translations such as BSB render it as "suitable helper" — each choosing a different way to handle the "corresponding to/opposite him" sense embedded in the Hebrew compound preposition.