Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira: Her Departure
Lilith appears as Adam's first wife in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a work scholars generally date between the eighth and tenth centuries. This is the oldest surviving form of that particular story, although whether the tradition itself is older remains uncertain. Lilith's refusal to accept a subordinate position gives the narrative its central conflict. Her creation, departure, and encounter with angels connect a dispute between the first couple to traditions about protecting infants. The work's interpretation is also disputed: some scholars have characterized it as satire, while Ginzberg concluded that it was meant seriously.
The creation scene begins with Adam alone and God's declaration that it is not good for him to remain that way. God forms Lilith from the earth, just as he formed Adam. Their shared origin becomes the basis of her argument for equality when they begin fighting over their positions during intercourse. Adam demands the superior position; Lilith refuses to lie below him. Neither listens to the other. Rather than accepting his demand, she pronounces the Ineffable Name and flies away into the air. Her exit follows directly from the conflict over whether their common beginning permits a hierarchy between them.
Adam responds by praying to his Creator and reporting that the woman given to him has run away. God sends three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, to bring her back. The Alphabet of Ben Sira takes the pursuit out to the sea, placing Lilith in the waters where the Egyptians are destined to drown. The angels deliver God's terms: if she returns, all is well; otherwise, one hundred of her children must die each day. She declines to return. The angels then threaten to drown her, turning the pursuit into a confrontation over her refusal to rejoin Adam.
Lilith answers the angels by declaring a role connected to infant sickness. She says that she has power over a male infant for eight days after birth and over a female infant for twenty days. When the angels insist again, she makes an oath by the living and eternal God. Whenever she sees the angels themselves, their names, or their forms on an amulet, she will have no power over that infant. She also accepts the daily death of one hundred of her children. These are events within the legend, where the oath establishes the protective force attributed to the angels' names.
The amulet tradition gives the story a practical endpoint beyond the quarrel and pursuit. An amulet bearing the names of the three angels is placed around a newborn boy's neck to protect him from the lilin until circumcision. In the story's explanation, Lilith sees the names, recalls her oath, and the child recovers. Yet amulets used against her are dated much earlier than this work. Their existence therefore has a chronology separate from the surviving first-wife narrative. A protective object associated with Lilith need not have originated with the version that casts her as Adam's departed partner.
The possibility of a woman before Eve also appears outside this particular narrative. Genesis Rabbah contains the concept of Eve having a predecessor, though the relevant discussions speak of a first Eve rather than using Lilith's name. One suggested background is the relationship between the creation scenes in Genesis: an earlier scene says that male and female were created, while a later scene describes Eve being made from Adam's rib. The Alphabet of Ben Sira places Lilith's creation after the declaration about Adam being alone. Linking that predecessor specifically to Lilith may be distinctive to this work, rather than a feature shared by every earlier tradition.
Lilith's name has a different setting in Isaiah, where the Hebrew word lilit occurs in a prophecy about Edom among a list of creatures. Its meaning is debated, with interpretations including a night bird and a demonic being. English translations have rendered it in several ways, including screech owl, night creature, and night bird. This biblical setting does not tell the story of a wife who leaves Adam. Other early traditions are different again: Songs of the Sage among the Dead Sea Scrolls mentions Lilith amid threatening spirits, while incantation bowls and amulets portray her as a female demon.
The purpose and background of the Alphabet of Ben Sira remain unclear. Its stories concern heroes of the Bible and Talmud, and proposed interpretations include a collection of folktales, a response to separatist movements, and an anti-Jewish satire. Medieval Jewish mystics in Germany nevertheless accepted the work. The first-wife conception gained wider recognition much later through the seventeenth-century Lexicon Talmudicum of the German scholar Johannes Buxtorf. Elsewhere, Numbers Rabbah uses Lilith in Moses's plea for the Israelites: he asks God not to resemble a being who turns against her own children, giving her another role in a different religious narrative.