Adam Knew Eve

When Scripture first tells of a husband and wife bringing a child into the world, it uses a word that surprises many readers. It does not say that Adam lay with Eve, or that he went in to her. It says that he knew her.

Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said: "I have gotten a man (ish אִישׁ eesh), the LORD."

The Word Yada

The verb is yada (יָדַע), “to know.” It is one of the most common verbs in the Hebrew Bible. It is the word for knowing a fact, for knowing a way, for knowing a person. Its root has already appeared in the garden, in the noun daat, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9), and the verb itself in the serpent’s promise, “knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Here, in Genesis 4:1, it is used for the first time of a husband and his wife, for the closest union between them.

The same word returns a few verses later, after the death of Abel.

Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his woman (ishah אִשָּׁה ish-shaw') again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth: "For God has appointed for me another seed instead of Abel, because Cain killed him."

Twice in one chapter, the union of the first husband and wife is told with this verb, and each time a child follows. Book 4 of this series examined Eve’s words at the first of these births closely; here our attention is on the verb that comes before them.

At this second birth Eve calls the child “another seed instead of Abel.” The word for seed is zera זֶרַע zeh'-rah, the word that runs from the promise of Genesis 3:15 through the whole of Genesis. Knowing brings forth seed, and the seed is received as appointed by God.

Knowing from the Inside

The choice of word tells us something. In English we most often use “know” for facts we have learned from books or from other people, and yada can mean that too. But here it names the closest and most unguarded union two human beings can have. It is not knowing about someone, the way you might know facts about a person you have never met. It is knowing from the inside, the knowledge that comes only from nearness.

You can read everything written about a great city. You can learn its streets from a map, its history from a book and its population from a table, and say that you know it. That is a different thing from living there, walking its streets day and night and belonging to it. Yada, in Genesis 4:1, is not the knowledge of the one who has read about the city. It is the knowledge of the one who lives there.

Go In To Her

Scripture has a second plain phrase for the same union: “go in to her.” The verb is bo (בּוֹא), “to come, to enter,” one of the most ordinary words in the language. Jacob uses it when he has served seven years for Rachel.

Genesis 29:21 And Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife (ishah), for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her."

And Judah uses it when he tells his son what the duty of a brother-in-law requires.

Genesis 38:8 And Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife (ishah), and perform the brother-in-law's duty to her, and raise up seed to your brother."

Judah’s words join the union with its purpose, to “raise up seed.” Seed is zera again, the same word as the “seed of God” in Malachi 2:15. This entering brings forth seed, new life. That is the blessing of Genesis 1:28 at work in the life of a family: be fruitful and multiply.

So Scripture speaks of this union with three kinds of words. It is one flesh (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr' echad). It is a going in (bo) that brings forth seed (zera). And it is a knowing (yada). Each describes the same act from a different side.

Guarded by Holiness

The union of a husband and wife is blessed by God from the first chapter of the Bible. The Torah also sets it within the boundaries of holiness, and two passages say so plainly.

The first is in the laws of purity in Leviticus.

Leviticus 15:18 And a woman (ishah) with whom a man (ish) lies, an emission of seed, they shall both bathe in water, and be unclean before(ad עד) the evening.

After a husband and wife have come together, “they shall both bathe in water, and be unclean before(ad) the evening.” Both of them, the man and the woman alike, wash. The word ad marks a limit: the uncleanness reaches up to the evening and goes no further. The verse names no offering; it names water and the evening. The whole of Leviticus 15 is written in this way: it names each kind of uncleanness that comes from the body, and for each it gives the way back to cleanness.

The second is at Mount Sinai, as the people prepared to meet God.

Exodus 19:10-15 And the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day the LORD will come down before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And you shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, 'Guard yourselves from going up into the mountain or touching its edge; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. No hand shall touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or surely be shot through; whether beast or man (ish), it shall not live.' When the ram's horn sounds long, they shall come up into the mountain." And Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and he sanctified the people, and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, "Be ready for the three days; do not come near to a woman (ishah)."

The LORD told Moses to sanctify the people for two days and have them wash their garments, ready for the third day, when He would come down on the mountain before the eyes of all the people. Moses went down, sanctified the people, and they washed their garments. Then Moses passed the word to the people, and he said: “Be ready for the three days; do not come near to a woman (ishah).” For the days of preparation before the LORD came down, the men of Israel were to keep apart from their wives.

That is what the two texts say. The union of a husband and wife is good and blessed; the Torah sets a boundary of washing after it, and a time of keeping apart before the people stood in the presence of God at Sinai. The same Torah that commands “be fruitful and multiply” also says when a person is clean and when unclean, and the two belong together.

What Knowing Means

Of all the ways Scripture could have spoken of this union between a husband and wife, the first word it uses for the act itself is the word for knowing. And knowing, in Scripture, is not a cold thing. It is nearness: two persons who belong to each other, whose union is blessed by God and guarded by His holiness, and from whose union new life comes.

That is why this word belongs in a book about agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay: a husband and wife are not strangers to one another but know each other, and from that knowing a child is born.

Yet the word does not stop with a husband and his wife in the book of Genesis. The prophets take this very word, yada, and apply it to God and His people. In Hosea, God speaks like a husband taking back an unfaithful bride, and the promise He makes to her ends with this same verb: you shall know the LORD.