What language did Adam and Eve speak?

We sometimes wonder how language first came into existence. One can only come to the conclusion that at first it was the miraculous gift of a beneficent Creator to our first parents. Was it the Hebrew language? We cannot tell.

One of the first places in which we find our father Adam before the fall is among the creatures. "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, to see" — that Adam might see" what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to every fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."

So that one of man's first lessons was a lesson of zoology; for the giving names to all the creatures surely implies intelligence about them; and the names stood for qualities in them that might be and were discerned. Adam was possessor of no language but his own, and could not hide in magniloquent Greek, as do our zoologists now, the emptiness of an unmeaning name. Could we recall, as we cannot now, those first names, we should surely find convincing proof that Adam was a full-grown man, and that nature appealed to him in a different way from that in which now it appeals to us, from our textbooks of zoology. Indeed, the Hebrew names, which must be no very far-off kin to Adam's, may well contain plenty of treasure in this way awaiting the explorer. Since then, we have dissected the forms, and too much lost the life and power.

Filled with the Holy Ghost, each disciple began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. Intercourse between people of different races and of different countries is much impeded by differences in language. In the beginning it was not so, nor for some time after the Flood was there any language but one. For all sprang from a common ancestry. All spake the language of the original parent. That this was the case, the inspired record in Genesis affirms. "The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech" (Gen. 11:1). Combination therefore for some settled purpose would be facilitated by that state of things, and men were taking advantage of it to build a city, and a tower whose top should reach to heaven, adding, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Possessed with the thought of their wisdom and their power, they began to build, forgetful that they were creatures wholly dependent on the will of the Creator. How far they had carried out their plans and to what height they had raised their tower are facts not recorded. Whatever commencement was made, the tower was never finished. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. He confounded their language. Their work stopped. It was an act of government on God's part, and that act He has never reversed.

Language thus was in no way the slow invention of man's wit, but an immediate endowment of our first parents by God from creation. Here His word assures us of its reality from the first day of man's creation; and everything confirms in the chapters that follow. To imagine otherwise is to disbelieve the Bible and prefer one's own thoughts or the dreams of other men, as if we or they could know anything about the matter. He Who alone knows all has been pleased to tell us the truth through Moses. His word was valid for the unintelligent creation: how comforting for the human pair to hear Him say, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it! Even though man comes in as a creature with the rest, still he is introduced exceptionally as the crown of creation; and the higher creatures are pronounced good separately from man, who is blessed, male and female, in an address to them as at the head of all the rest.

Then the various species of land animals and birds are brought forward to see what Adam would call them; not when Eve was formed, but before. The beautiful type of creation belonging to Christ is thus admirably preserved.* Creation does not in the first instance belong to the church at all, whose place is purely one of grace. The Heir of all things is the Second man, and not the bride. If she possesses all along with Him, it is because of her union with Him, not intrinsically. This, it is observable, is kept up strikingly here, for Adam has these creatures brought before him by Jehovah- Elohim, and gives names to them all, showing clearly not alone his title as lord, but the power of appropriate language imparted by God from the first. The notion that intelligible speech is a mere growth from the gradual putting together of elements is a dream of ingenious speculation, which may exercise men's wits, but has no foundation whatever. Adam on the very first day of his life, even before Eve was formed, gave the animals their names, and God Himself sanctioned what their head uttered. Such was his relation to the creature; he was put in that place by God.

*This moral and typical bearing is the true key to the record in Gen. 2:4-25, and truly accounts for the differences from 1 - 2:3, which ignorance and unbelief pervert into the discrepancies of two separate and inconsistent writers. It is not the fact that Gen. 2:7, 19, represents man as created first of all living creatures before the birds and beasts; any more than that man created in God's image (Gen. 1:27) contradicts the statement of Genesis 2:7, that he was formed of the dust of the ground. It is not said in Genesis 1:27 that man and woman were created together; or that the woman was created directly, and not formed out of one of the man's ribs.

But this made the want so much the more evident, of which Jehovah-Elohim takes notice, of a partner for Adam's affections and life, one that might be before him, as it is said: "And Jehovah-Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.'' The creation of the woman apart from the man (as no doubt every other male and female were made separately) would have been a sterile and unimpressive fact. As it is, God reserves the striking detail for the scene of moral relationship. And may I not put it to the conscience of every soul whether such an event is not exactly where it should be, according to the internal and distinctive features of Genesis 1 and 2? We all know how apt man has been to forget the truth — how often might takes advantage of right! God at least was pleased to form woman, as well as to reveal her formation in a way that ought to make ashamed him who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses a relationship so intimate. "And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which Jehovah-Elohim had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

As Jehovah Elohim deigned to build his rib into an Ishah (woman), so He brought her to the man, the highest and best form of marriage: a source never absent from faith at any time, but as it was then, how admirably suited to primeval simplicity in the innocence of both! He who knew all had said that it was not good for the man to be alone. The recognition of Adam's authority in giving a name to the inferior creation only made the gap more sensible. And now that the woman was received as it were from the divine hand, not from Elohim only but from Him Who in all His action here recorded was laying perfectly the ground for mutual duty in the relationship of marriage, "the man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Ishah, for out of Ish was taken this." He was instantly conscious of the intimate and suited relationship, though hitherto unacquainted with the divine purpose; and he gave her a name admirably expressive of the fact. How poor are all the imaginations of man on this theme in presence of the truth thus revealed to us! But it could be appropriately communicated, not under the head of creation simply (Elohim), but of its moral government (Jehovah Elohim). So simple, sure, and unforced is the usage of the divine designations here employed, without the crude, superficial, and sceptical hypothesis of distinct writers, destructive as it is of all real intelligence, and of that good and profoundly wise design for God's glory which is the surest mark of inspiration from first to last.

Attention may also be drawn to the refutation which the simple facts here revealed give to the vain hypothesis that the use of intelligible speech was a human invention. We need not quarrel in the least with the science of language, any more than with other science. The ablest of comparative philologists cannot rise above the root words in the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian families of speech, pointing to a common source, the darkness of which science utterly fails to penetrate. Nor need it be doubted that imitative sounds and interjectional cries have added to the force and variety of language since early days. It is only when speculators cry up their little contributions, as if they were an adequate account of the origin of language, that they expose themselves to the derision of the Bow-wow and the Pooh-pooh theories. For those who believe the word of God the question does not exist. It is certain that Elohim blessed our first parents, and said to them, Be fruitful, etc. It is certain that, when moral relations were established, Jehovah Elohim brought the subject creatures to Adam as to their lord for the names he would give them. Even before this the man had received the injunction imposed on his tenure of the garden with the solemn sanction of death on disobedience; as after naming the animals Adam intelligently expresses the woman's nature and relation to himself in a way beyond all Rabbins on the one hand and all philosophers on the other throughout the ages, giving her and himself names accordingly.

To deny the reality of all this is worthy of the irrationalism of the Rationalist. It is untrue that God addressed the sea monsters and their congeners, though He blessed them. It is the revealed fact that He did from the first address Man. He puts honour on His word throughout; but He "commanded" in ch. 1 as Jehovah Elohim, and was thoroughly understood. So Adam is declared to have exercised speech according to that power of God, alone suited to the beginning, which formed him a grown man in mind as well as in body, and with language as set over the animal kingdom, and with woman the meet companion of his life, where imitative lessons or interjectional outbursts could have no place, any more than rootwords.

This is the truth; and reason is hound to admit that it is as worthy of God as suited to man: even the vain Rousseau, after all sorts of efforts to account for it, was "convaincu de l'impossibilitée, presque démontrée, que les langues aient pu naitre, et s'établir, par des moyens purement humaines." (Inégal. des Hommes.) That Adam at once named the animals brought to him; that he learnt to speak from their cries is an infidel reverie, not an honest exegesis. Science even in its lowest yet haughtiest form, the Positive Philosophy of Comte, abandons all enquiry into the beginning of things as hopeless, abjures causes, and heeds nothing but the laws of phenomena. Rational science undertakes to treat of no more than the established course of nature; but absolute silence about the beginning! It can give no light on the ultimate producing cause; yet a beginning, a primordial and permanent producing cause, there must have been; and this, whatever the mode or means employed, was none other than God.

There was language from the first. God spoke to the man and his wife (Gen. 1:28-30) and the man spoke to the beasts, etc., in giving them all their names (Gen. 2:20). What a different story the earth would be able to tell had its most gifted inhabitant remained loyal to his Creator, and refused all the overtures of the foe! But though Eden is lost beyond recovery, heaven stands open to all who, as confessedly ruined sinners, put their trust in the Saviour who died and rose again.

We are introduced to another great thought of God in verse 18. Man was not created to be an altogether self-sufficient being. He needed not only companionship but an "helpmeet" or "counterpart." We see the goodness of God as well as His wisdom in the way by which the counterpart came into being. The object being the good and profit of Adam, he was allowed to see for himself that no such counterpart existed in the animal creation by the whole range of beasts and fowls being brought before him.

Adam was evidently at the height of his intellectual powers before they had been in any way tarnished by sin. He was able to discern in each case the characteristic feature, so as to give the suitable name, for the names of course were descriptive and not just fancy words meaning nothing. Adam had both intellect and language, with command of speech. And just because he had, he found no counterpart in the animal creation.

When the law comes it does nothing to accommodate itself to this confused speech; it is given in the one primitive language, and only one; and if men wanted to know God's requirements, they must learn that language. But when the gospel comes, the curse becomes a blessing: the way in which the difficulty of diverse speech is miraculously met at Pentecost is a present and overpowering evidence of the nature and origin of the message. All this is very characteristic: man brings curse out of blessing; and God brings blessing out of curse.

The last chapter gave us with minute detail the new fact on the earth of the sons of Noah after their generations, in their nations, after their tongues, and in their lands. Here were traits and arrangements, unknown to the world before the deluge, and in no degree seen for some time after. Gen. 10 casts invaluable light, found nowhere else, on the rise of those families distributed on the earth, every one after his tongue. It is only in Gen. 11 that we find the originating cause and occasion. The previous chapter comes in, not flowing according to historic time, but as a descriptive parenthesis between Gen. 9 and 11. It was of very great importance to give us inspired certainty where men had no adequate record, and no reliable tradition; where pride hastened to disguise or forget a divine judgment which effectually rebuked it. East or west, men set up claims to be indigenous from the first, sprung from their own soil; and if they believed that man was an outcast from Paradise, though in forms disguised by pride, setting up to speak the original language of our primeval parents.

The A.V. fails to express the two thoughts. The speech and the words were alike one. "And the whole earth was of one language (lip) and the words one" (or the same) (11:1). The Latin Vulgate gives the literal reflection of the Hebrew text. Moses beyond doubt here goes back to the universal state of mankind for a certain period after the great catastrophe of the flood. Till then and after it, man had but one "lip" and the same words.