Some say the God created man and woman in His own image on the
Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world, but that Eve did not
yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and
other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and
female, Adam--being already like a twenty-year-old man--felt
jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female
creature in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried:
"Every creature but I has a proper mate!" and prayed God would
remedy this injustice.
God then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam
himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said, "I will not lie below," and he said, "I will not lie beneath
you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while am to be in the superior one." Lilith responded, "We
are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth." Because Adam tried
to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic
name of God, rose into the air and left him.
Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: "Sovereign
of the universe!" he said, "the woman you gave me has run away." At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angles
to bring her back. Said the Holy One to Adam, "If she agrees to come back, fine. If not she must permit one hundred of her children to die
every day."
The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the
Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return.
"It will be death to refuse!" they answered.
"How can I die," Lilith asked again, "when God has ordered me to
take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life,
that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if
ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet
above a newborn child, I promise to spare it." To this they agreed,
but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her
children perish daily.
Then God said, "It
is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18), and he created a second wife for Adam and called her Eve.
To ensure her subjection to Adam, Eve was created from Adam's rib as a reminder that she owed her very existence to him.
Thus is the story of the two wives of Adam.