In The King James Bible, Genesis:
2:20 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.
I have also found a book from 1729 by Edward Wells called An help for the right understanding of the several divine laws and covenants, whereby man has been oblig'd thro' the several ages of the world to guide himself in order to eternal salvation.
Does this mean that 'help' was pronounced starting with a vowel sound? Or was the rule for using the article an different back then?
I understand that hour, honor or heir have a silent 'h', coming from Latin and Greek. However, according to the American Heritage Dictionary:
help (hĕlp)
[...]
[Middle English helpen, from Old English helpan.]
Maybe there were several pronunciations? How did Shakespeare pronounce it in his works?