To bear children [yalod]. The notion understood by means of this word is well known. It is that of procreation. Thus: And they have borne him children.1 Afterwards this word was used figuratively to designate the bringing to existence of natural things. Thus: Before the mountains were brought forth.2 It was likewise used figuratively to designate, by analogy with procreation, the notion of earth bringing forth her vegetal produce. Thus: And make it bring forth and bud.3 It was likewise used figuratively with reference to happenings occurring in time, as though they were things that were born. Thus: Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.4 It was likewise used figuratively with reference to happenings within thought and the opinions and doctrines that they entail. Thus it says: And bore falsehood.5 It is a derivation from this meaning when it is said: And they please themselves in the children6 of strangers,7 that is, they are content with their opinions; or, as Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, has put it in his interpretation of this verse: They walk according to the laws of the gentiles. In this sense whoever instructs an individual in some matter and teaches8 him an opinion, has, as far as his being provided with this opinion is concerned, as it were engendered that individual. In this sense the prophets’ disciples were called sons of the prophets, as we shall explain when treating the equivocality of the term son. In this figurative sense it is said of Adam: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot9 [a son] in his own likeness, after his image.10 It has already been explained to you what the meaning of the image of Adam and his likeness is. Now none of the children of [Adam] born before [Seth] had been endowed with true human form, which is [18a] the image of Adam and his likeness referred to in the words: the image of God and His likeness. As for Seth, it was after [Adam] had instructed him and procured him understanding and after he had attained human perfection that it was said of him: And [Adam] begot [a son] in his own likeness, after his image. You know that whoever is not endowed with this form, whose signification we have explained, is not a man, but an animal having the shape and configuration of man. Such a being, however, has a faculty to cause various kinds of harm and to produce evils that is not possessed by the other animals. For he applies the capacities for thought and perception, which were to prepare him to achieve a perfection that he has not achieved, to all kinds of machinations entailing evils and occasioning and engendering all kinds of harm. Accordingly, he is, as it were, a thing resembling man or imitating him. The children of Adam who preceded Seth were of this sort. The authors of the Midrash say accordingly:11 During the entire period of a hundred and thirty years, when Adam was under rebuke, he begot spirits; they mean devils. When, however, He again accorded him His favor, he begot a son resembling him, I mean in his own likeness, after his image. Accordingly it says: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot [a son] in his own likeness, after his image.