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. [1]
God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except
that he used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with
this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister,
sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many
generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat,
disguised as harlots of Jerusalem. [2]
Adam and Lilith never found peace together, for when he wished to lie with
her, she took offence at the recumbent position he demanded. "Why must I lie
beneath you?" she asked. "I also was made from dust, and am therefore your
equal." 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 complained to God: "I have been deserted by my helpmeet." God at once
sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They
found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom
she bore 'lilim' at the rate of more than one hundred a day. "Return to Adam
without delay," the angels said, "or we will drown you!" Lilith asked: "How
can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside
the Red Sea?" "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 demon
children perish daily; [3] and if she
could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would
spitefully turn against her own. [4]
Some say that Lilith ruled as queen in Zmargad, and again in Sheba; and was
the demoness who destroyed Job's sons. [5] Yet she escaped
the curse of death which overtook Adam, since they had parted long before the
Fall. Lilith and Naamah not only strangle infants but also seduce dreaming
men, and one of whom, sleeping alone, may become their victim. [6]
