The Holy Spirit however thought it not enough to say here "And Adam knew Eve;" but he also adds, "his wife!" For the Holy Spirit approves not wandering lusts and promiscuous intercourse! He wills that every man should live content with his own wife. And although, alas! even that union of married people itself is very far from being pure, as it would have been had man continued in his state of innocency; nevertheless even in the midst of the vices of lust and of all the other calamities of the fall of Adam, the "blessing" of God on marriage still stands unaltered. For the fact of Adam knowing Eve his wife, which Moses records, was not written for Adam and Eve's sake. When Moses penned these words, Adam and Eve had long been reduced to their original dust. It was for our sakes therefore that this was written; "That those who cannot contain might marry," 1 Cor. 7:9, "live content each with his Eve, and not desire strange women." This expression, "knew his wife," is a phrase peculiar to the Hebrews; for neither the Latins nor the Greeks so expressed themselves. It is a form of speech particularly beautiful; not only on account of the modesty and reverence it preserves, but on account of the peculiarity of signification it conveys. For the verb YADA has a much more extensive meaning than the verb "to know" in our language. Thus, when Job says, concerning the wicked, "They shall know what it is to act against God" he means that they shall feel and experience the consequences of such actions. So, when David says, "For I acknowledge my sin," Ps. 51:3, his meaning is, I feel and experience what it is to sin. Again, when the angel of the Lord says to Abraham, "For now I know that thou fearest God," Gen. 22:12, his meaning is, "I know by sense and experience." And again, when the Virgin Mary said unto the angel, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man," Luke 1:34, her meaning is the same as that of Job, David, etc. For, it is evident that Mary knew many men, but she had neither known nor experienced any man, as man or the male of God's creation. It was in this manner therefore that Adam "knew Eve his wife," as it is expressed in the present passage. Adam did not know his Eve as an object of sight or of a speculative knowledge, but he experienced in reality what she was as the "woman," whom God had created such. That which follows, "And Eve conceived, and bare Cain," is sure evidence that the human nature was more excellent and perfect then than it is now. For there were originally no unfruitful embraces, as there are now in this old age of the world. As soon as Eve was known by her Adam, she was immediately impregnated and conceived.