478. The reason he is called Adam is that the Hebrew word Adam means man. But the fact that Adam was never used as a proper name, only Man, is quite clear from the consideration that both here and earlier he is spoken of in the plural and not in the singular, and that the term refers to both man and woman. The two together are called Man. Anyone may see from these words that both are included, for it is said, 'He called their name Man on the day in which they were created', and similarly in 1:26, 28, 'Let Us make man in Our image, and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea. This shows also that the subject is not about someone who, when created, was the first human being of all, but about the Most Ancient Church.

9314. 'And will act as adversary to your adversaries' means that He will turn away all evils from which falsities arise. This is clear from the meaning of 'acting as adversary', when it refers to Jehovah or the Lord, as turning away, dealt with immediately above in 9313; and from the meaning of 'adversaries' as evils from which falsities arise, since those evils in the spiritual sense are 'adversaries' opposed to forms of good from which truths spring. The reason why evils from which falsities arise are meant by 'adversaries' is that falsities arising from evil are meant by 'enemies'; for wherever falsity is the subject in the Word, so too is evil, even as when truth is the subject so too is good, see 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712, 3132, 4138 (end), 5138, 5502, 6343, 7945, 8339. From this it is evident that one thing is meant by 'acting as enemy to enemies' and another thing by 'acting as adversary to adversaries', and that the latter is not a repetition that occurs simply to make the subject sound more lofty.