“The Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone…”
Genesis 2:18
We usually think of this verse in the context of a man looking for a spouse. In fact, this is more than that. This is God telling us that it is not good for any person to be alone.
The Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 is a well-known incident in the Bible. This is also an important example of how people can achieve so much when we work together.
“The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
Genesis 11:6
Even the Lord recognized that nothing will be impossible for us if we speak the same language!
Such is the power of team work! Such is the power of staying together.
Would the success of the Tower of Babel have been possible if man had been alone? Even the ancient people recognized the power of staying together.
International Co-operation
What is speaking the same language? Today we observe that citizens of countries that speak a common language usually have greater solidarity and lesser conflicts and the converse is also true. Thus, having the “same language” can be a common goal. With a common goal, people of different backgrounds and abilities can come together to “speak the same language”.
The recent international cooperation to come up with a vaccine to protect people against the onslaught of COVID-19 clearly demonstrates this.
Many countries worldwide had shared the genetic sequencing of the virus. In addition, many people came forward to enroll for vaccine trials. The vaccine trials that would usually take years, took only months to fill up due to public interest. This helped scientists to complete vaccine trials quickly and roll out life-saving vaccines in a short period of time.
While countries have been closing borders, scientists have been shattering theirs, creating a global collaboration that overcomes nationality, language and geographic location, grounding all other research to focus on one topic – getting a COVID-19 vaccine out for the world. The results are life-saving vaccines that have benefited millions of people worldwide.
It is not good for man to be alone.
Business arena
Businesses have also realised that in order to succeed, the employees need to “speak the same language” – which is to have a common goal. Companies that give shares to its employees to give them a vested interest in its business, see greater motivation and innovation amongst its employees, increasing the likelihood of making the business successful.
One example is Publix Super Markets. According to Forbes magazine, Publix Super Markets is America’s largest employee-owned company. It has 1,272 store locations and more than 225,000 employees. All Publix workers, regardless of their position in the company, receive company stock after they have been with the company for more than 12 months.
(Information obtained from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/051316/6-successful-companies-are-employeeowned.asp#citation-4)
Why stop the Tower of Babel?
So if it was good for humans to be working together, why did God stop the building of the Tower of Babel? This was because Man was going against the command to “fill the earth”. By building the Tower of Babel, the strong men who intended to build the tower had wanted to stay together, eliminate others who were different from them in intent, and not be scattered over the earth.
In taking away their common language, God temporarily took away man’s ability to work together – and the Tower of Babel failed.
As a result, they were scattered over the face of the earth – which fulfilled God’s command for Man to “fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Though the Lord God had stopped the building of the Tower of Babel, we must not fail to recognize the power a ‘common language’ bestowed upon these ancient people. Also, we must not underestimate the great ambition that was born out of it. Otherwise, the Lord would not have needed to personally nip it in the bud!
Such is the power of being together!
In Creation
In Creation, the Bible too, hints that it is not good to be separated.
“And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.”
Genesis 1:6-8
In the rest of the Creation account, whenever God did something, it was followed with God declaring that ‘it was good. However, in this specific account where water is separated from water, the Bible did not state that “God saw that it was good.” Why is it so?
When we delve deeper, it is not because that the creation of a sky was not a good thing – imagine our world without a sky! God wants to send a message to us by intentionally omitting his declaration after waters were separated – that it is not good for something meant to be one, to be separated. The juxtaposition of words and events helps us to realise this in the context for human relationships. God says it more clearly in Genesis 2:18 “It is not good for man to be alone.”
How can we apply this?
Who are the people in our society who tend to live alone? Old folks, even those who have family members, may choose to live alone. They may decide to do this to avoid being a burden to other family members, despite verbal reassurance from others that this is not the case. We therefore need to be more reassuring towards our elders – that they are not a burden to us. And we genuinely enjoy their presence.
When we are old (I speak to the young and middle aged people reading this), remember that it is not good to be alone. Do not doubt the laws that God set up at the time of Creation. Remember that Genesis was written by Moses, not for Adam and Eve to read, but for the Israelites and those who come after them to reflect upon. God knows that there will be suffering, and He is preparing us to avoid suffering and to overcome the limitations that man has by being together.
It is not good for Man to be alone.