Genesis 2:19-20 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Adam, before the Fall, responded correctly and obediently to God’s command and blessing to ”have dominion” over every living thing. To “name” something is to take ownership of, control over, and responsibility for something. He had the wisdom and authority to give names to every living thing on land, sea, and air. This miraculous event is an example of the extraordinary gifts and abilities of the God-created and God-blessed human being before the Fall. Noah would exhibit a similar feat with the help of God.
However, Man lost this dominion, authority, and brilliance by choosing to disobey the Lord when he fell into Sin, and brought us all down with him. Humans have domesticated some animals, but many remain wild and even deadly. We have some residual dominion remaining, but it’s nothing like it was in Paradise.
The response of Jesus is to restore some measure of spiritual dominion over Sin and Evil, and we have the right to exercise that dominion in Jesus’ Name. In His Temptation, Jesus had a do-over of Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve, and He overcame for us. A little-known verse in the Temptation story in Mark 1:13: ”and he was with the wild animals,” hints at how Jesus restored dominion to us. Our proper human response is to believe: ”Lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.”