Men in the Bible: Adam – A Man of Himself
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. – Genesis 2:18-20
We will take a brief pause from our exploration of the nature and personality of God, as we take a detour to also consider some of the men and women in the Bible. In starting our journey of the study of humans, there is no better candidate to start with than the first human to whom we are first acquainted and whose name we are first introduced to in record history, the man Adam.
The first lesson we can learn from Adam is that he was a self-assured man; a man of himself, who had his own mind, and could not be easily intimidated into bucking on his stand. From our reference passage above, having created Adam and entrusting him with His precious earthly garden, God then expressed His concern about the solitude of Adam, with him having no companion with him like every other creature God had created.
However, in a strange sequence of event, God did a rather extraordinary thing. He brought all the creatures He had made to Adam to see what he would call them. Perhaps, this move on the part of God was to test Adam, we may never know; or it was because God hoped that Adam would take one of the creatures for companion. We really cannot tell.
If it was a test, Adam obviously passed it, as he was not fazed by the stature and enormity of God who brought all those creatures to him. Adam named each and every one of them and did not allow himself to be awed into proclaiming one of them as his companion in an attempt to please God.
On the other hand, if it was a speculation on the part of God, Adam also had no scruples about disagreeing with God by not taking one of the creatures for himself, as a partner. He appraised all the creatures God brought to him, only God knows how many hundreds of thousands those creatures must be, and how long it must have taken Adam to complete this herculean task. But he did name each of them based on his own judgement of their nature and attributes.
And even when he must be really tired at times from this exercise, Adam did not let down his guard to hurriedly adopt one of the creatures as partner. He arguably knew what he wanted, but even if he did not, he knew what he did not want. That was the reason he did not name any of the creatures his partner or start to second-guess himself in case he was being too choosy. That was self-assuredness.
It appeared that God was also disappointed at the end of the naming process because after Adam finally completed the assignment, the Bible records rather ruefully that while “Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:20). Adam had a mind of his own to know what was good and fitting for him as well as what was not. He was not impressionable even when he was dealing with God. Now that is worthy of admiration.
Selah!
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