Ezer Kenegdo in Genesis  

Thanks for this video Dr. Francois! I thought it was really helpful, articulate and about as accessible to lay people as you could make it given the subject matter. I've shared it with others as well since Freedman's short article has gained such wide influence. It was recently leaned on for an argument made in chapter 1 of the newest update of Discovering Biblical Equality.

It’s interesting to note that our Messiah also gives mankind a HELPER, the Holy Spirit, and refers to it as “POWER from on high.” Isn’t it possible that God Himself has given us the proper clarification of “helper” and “power” through the example of the Holy Spirit?

They have to be equal. Adam and Eve are a metaphor for the beginning of life. When you take an electron from an atom, you split it and make two atoms, two equal atoms. When you take a rib from man, you make another human, two equal humans. Equal does not mean same. They are equal, but they are not the same. They're two sides of a toroidal field, attached by the plane of inertia, or the plane of earth. They are equal, but they are not the same.

In accordance with this whole message and genesis 2:18, 2 corinthians 6:14-18 I loosen myself of being a helper of a power that is not equal to mine, in the name and blood of Jesus Christ, amen and hallelujah!

I feel like what people also need is a cultural appropriation of the words used. People are looking at these words with our own cultural glasses sometimes and need to see the connotation and the meaning it had when it was written.

All translations of Gen 2:18 are founded on the misconception that “God has already created man (a male human), place HIM in the Garden of Eden and commanded HIM not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” as Mr. Freedman points out in his introduction, but this assumption is proven incorrect in Gen 1:27 & 5: 1 & 2 where it states that God made mankind in his own likeness, male and female, and called them man אָדָ֔ם. Other evidence against the first human being a man is found in Hosea 11:9, where YHVH says “God I [am] and not man אִ֔ישׁ⁠”, which is what the man identified himself as in Gen 2:23. Rashi’s statement on Exodus 15:3 that “Wherever the words איש and אישך occur they must be translated by בעל; so, too, (1 Kings 2:2) “Be thou strong and show thyself an איש” - a mighty person”, must apply here and in Gen 3:16. In Strong’s Concordance, ish אִ֔ישׁ means “god, god-like one, mighty one”. Bible translators and theologians try to present these mighty ones in a positive light, however they are murderers like Cain Gen 4:1, evil like the “men of renown” Gen 6:4, more like beasts than humans Gen 7:2, and the first man was the serpent in Gen 3:1 who “became cunning over all living beings of the land” who deceived the woman. Once we have the context correct, by recognizing that the first human that YHVH created was both male and female, and the man (ish) had already fallen, in that he believed he was like God, then we can spot the many translation errors in this sentence which force it to align with Church tradition the goal of which is to allow males to rule over females: • The Hebrew text does not contain punctuation, the period or semi-colon after ‘alone’ is arbitrary. • Translators add ‘It is’ at the beginning of the sentence to distort its meaning, when the first words are ‘Not good’. • The Hebrew verb heyowt הֱי֥וֹת which means ‘become’, is translated as ‘for’ or ‘that’. • The Hebrew noun ha-adam is referring to the human created in Gen 1: 27, in God’s image, who is male and female. After the separation into male and female persons ha-adam is used of both. For example, in the phrase “daughters of men” in Gen 6: 2 & 4, it means “daughters of men and women” because clearly men cannot create offspring independent of women. • The prefix לְ and bad בַדּ֑וֹ, are translated as ‘be alone’, when the prefix means ‘to’ and bad is derived from badad בָּדָ֣ד which means part or stave (break something by forcing it inward or piercing it roughly). • A period or semi-colon are added here to disassociate the second half of the sentence from the rest, but since ancient Hebrew is not punctuated, we know that these have been added by translators to support their interpretation of the text. • The Hebrew לּ֥וֹ is translated as ‘him’ to make it appear that the man is the subject of the verse when it means ‘if only’. • The Hebrew ezer עזר, translated as ‘helper’, means ‘to help’ or ‘to assist’, and • The Hebrew neged נֶגְדּֽוֹ , translated as ‘counterpart’, means ‘opposite’. Gen 2:18 doesn’t say “it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper.” It actually states “Said YHVH God, ‘not good become the man, to stave do, if only to help opposite’”. The separation of the female from the male human delivered the woman, who is identified as Israel in Gen 3:15 & Rev 12: 1 to 5, from her opposite, a mighty one who seeks to rule over her in Gen 3:16. Once we know the truth we can free ourselves from their rule and chose God instead which is what Eve should have done.

Thank you so much for this level of detail. Even though I don't study Hebrew, I was able to follow along and at least understand why these words were misunderstood. I've been wondering about this for a few years since I first heard the argument similar to Freedman's.

I came here with hope to get the information about "kenegdo", the word which appears only in this context... NGD is the raddix, but what K as prefix and O as suffix stans for...? and how to translate it at the end?

Would verses proverbs 24:5, proverbs 31:17 and proverbs 31:25 be considered abstract examples of “ezer” being used in relation to people?

I didn't understand the part where you say that those passages would be expected to have archaic language, isn't Genesis also a book we would expect to find archaic language?

Do you have a video describing kenegdo?