I am wondering about the use of "know" in the sexual sense in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., "[Cain] knew his wife" in Gen. 4:17). Is this an euphemism by the first translators into English, or was this euphemism taken over from the original text?
Do we know more precisely what the word meant in the original? Was it restricted to procreation, or was it just the general "know" that we have in modern English (etc etc, any info appreciated).
(I have not done any research, as I cannot read Hebrew.)
This euphemism is original to the Hebrew text; it was not introduced by later translators. More modern translations may drop the euphemism and express things more directly. (Such a translation is then freer in some sense, which you may consider a bad thing, but on the other hand they may reflect the original message of the text better, which you may consider a good thing.)
The Hebrew root is ידע yāda`, which covers a semantic field similar to that of English to know. It is often slightly more ingressive (get to know; perceive), as in Isaiah 6:9 ("keep on seeing, but do not perceive"), even to understand ("Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD", Jdg. 13:21). Mordecai walks nearby the palace to know how Esther is doing (Esther 2:11). In Aramaic, when servants report to the king, they can be said to "make X known unto the king" (Dan. 4:6 etc.). With people it can be simple acquintance (Gen. 29:5) as well as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, both from the man's point of view (Gen. 4:17; 1 Sam. 1:19; ...) and from the woman's point of view (Gen. 19:8; Jdg. 11:39; ...).
To use a verb like to know as a euphemism for sexual intercourse is somewhat common cross-linguistically and must therefore not surprise us; it occurs in other languages related to Hebrew (Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian) but also in Greek and French (although this may be a result of literal bible translations introducing the idiom into the language).
If you are interested in further analysis, the theological dictionaries (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament; New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis) would be the place to go to. The entries there will list many more occurrences and place the root in a larger framework, and are generally accessible for people who do not read Hebrew.
The expression "to know" is found in the King James Version at Genesis 4:1:
And Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bare Cain
The New International Version translates the Hebrew text this way:
Adam lay with his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain
Clearly, in this instance, "to know" refers to sexual relations between a man and a woman resulting in procreation.
There is another instance (in Genesis 19:5) where the King James Version uses the expression "know". It's when the men of Sodom wanted Lot to bring out the two men (angels of the Lord) who were staying with him:
Bring them out to us, that we may know them
The NIV is more specific:
Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word "yadha" is translated as "to know" in the King James Bible in Genesis 4:1, and within the context of that verse it is a euphemism for having sexual relations.
The Hebrew word in Genesis 19:5 may have been "shakhabh" which is a reference to homosexual sex. The King James Version may have deliberately chosen to use a more "delicate" English word (know) in order not to offend the sensibilities of the 17th century readers.
In the New Testament, there are Greek words which can be translated as "know" but in the intellectual, and not physical, sense. I hope that helps.
Only the High Priest could (know ידע) what it was like to go in to the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. Those on the outside could read about what was in there but weren’t to (know ידע) or see personally. The High Priest was (m’kodesh מקודש) made holy/set apart to go in there. In the Lord’s eyes only the husband should (know ידע) his wife sexually. Only the husband in set apart/made holy (m’kodesh מקודש) to know her. This is why the Lord hates both physical and spiritual adultery, both have not been made holy!
