What does “it is not good for man to be alone” mean?
In Genesis 1 and 2, we notice a repeated chorus, that God said that various parts of the creation were “good” as he made them. And when it was completed, he declared it “very good”. Yet in this perfect world, in Genesis 2:18 we see the first thing that God says is “not good”. It’s striking. Something is not quite right about this world; at least, not yet.
What is it that is “not good”? It is that the man should be alone. Notice that this is something that God has noticed, not something the man complains about. God made the man to be a social creature, and he is alone. We should understand this in context, and the commentator Victor Hamilton is helpful here. When you think about the other parts of creation, we so often see that one part has its complement. The skies are not complete by themselves; they have the sun and moon, and they have birds. The seas are not complete by themselves; they have fish and other sea creatures in them. Yet man does not have his complement. He is alone.
The man has been given a task to do. Chapter 1 describes it as to fill the earth and subdue it; chapter 2 describes it as to work it and keep it. He is also to obey and honour God, as we saw with the instruction to avoid the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These are big tasks that require a lot. It’s not only gardening; it is to do with how you spend your life, what your priorities are, and it’s a life-long thing. These are tasks where the man needs help.
God identifies the issue, and God also provides the solution. As we see throughout these first chapters of Genesis, all creation is God’s work, not Adam’s work.
There is a key principle here for us to understand: people are made to be social. We need community. We need one another. Now, I understand that some of us love spending time with others more than other people do. Yet this universal truth applies to everyone. Yes, all of us, even introverts! We miss something critical when we isolate ourselves from others; we are going against the purpose we were made for. Life is not intended to be an individual sport.
God then brings a lot of animals in front of Adam for him to name them. This doesn’t contradict Genesis 1, by the way. This doesn’t need to mean that he made the animals after making the man; it can be past tense, as the ESV puts it. The point of these verses is that no animal can solve the alone problem that the man has. Animals have always made good companions for people to some degree. Yet as much as you love your dog or cat, it cannot be a substitute for people. I know many people try! It is easier to be friends with a dog than a person, after all. Yet animals do not fix the alone problem, not really.
V20 ends with a similar line to the start of v18. There was no helper fit for Adam found among the animals. Note that the animals are made of the same stuff the man was; you see it in v19. They were made out of the ground, just like the man. If you chemically analyse people and animals, you will find us made of the same elements, the same materials. Yet animals and people are not the same. Animals cannot communicate to the level people can, and they are not made in the image of God. They don’t have the same capacity to relate to God and the same moral abilities people have. The man needs something more than this.
Many have read this verse about not being good being alone to think that you are somehow incomplete if you are single. This is reinforced by romantic movies too. Perhaps you know the line from Jerry Maguire where the lead actor tells his love interest that she completes him, as if he was not complete until he had a romantic partner. This is also reinforced by pressure many single people feel from society and their culture and their families to be married.So let me be very clear; we need to read this in the context of the wider Bible. You are in the image of God, complete and important to God, whether you are single or not. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 says that being single is, in important ways, better than being married. I cannot say this any clearer: you are not more important to God if you are married. You are special as you are, whether single or married.
Yet we need to take the concept that none of us should ever be truly alone seriously. There are more ways to be in community than to be married. We all need friends and family. We all need other people. And the local church is such an important community for all believers. We need one another. It is not good for us to be alone.