Genesis7chapter 7

This chapter is heard inside the second portion of the annual cycle, which opens at Genesis 6:9 and runs to the end of Genesis 11 (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The whole flood account is read in that one sitting, so the rising of the waters and the settling of the nations are heard on the same Sabbath. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Rashi reads the clean animals of the second verse as the animals that would later be clean for Israel. From that he draws the conclusion that "Noah studied the Torah" before it was given (Rashi on Genesis 7:2:1). He reads the seven days of waiting in the fourth verse as the seven days of mourning for Methuselah. The years of Methuselah ran out in the six hundredth year of Noah (Rashi on Genesis 7:4:1, citing Sanhedrin 108b).

The month of the flood is disputed in the corpus itself. Rashi reports Rabbi Eliezer holding that the second month is Marcheshvan, and Rabbi Joshua holding that it is Iyar (Rashi on Genesis 7:11:1, citing Rosh Hashanah 11b). The dispute matters beyond this chapter, because it is the same dispute about where the year begins.

Rashi reads the separation of the men and the women in the seventh verse as a rule of the ark. Husbands and wives lived apart while the world was in distress (Rashi on Genesis 7:7:1). Radak reads the pairs of the fifteenth verse as proof that every kind came whole. Every species arrived, and none was lost or mixed with another (Radak on Genesis 7:15:1).

Ibn Ezra carries three comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for the English version keeps the text out. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 7:19:1, 7:21:1 and 7:24:1.

Rashi carries four sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on the rain. The text calls it rain in the twelfth verse and a flood in the seventeenth, and Rashi reports the reading that God sent the water gently at the start. Had the people repented while it fell, it would have been a rain of blessing (Rashi on Genesis 7:12:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 31:12).

The second is on the day Noah went in. Rashi reports that his generation had said they would smash the ark and kill him if they saw him enter it. God answered that he would go in before all their eyes, and that they would see whose word stood (Rashi on Genesis 7:13:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 32:8).

The third follows it. On the shutting of the door Rashi reports that God set bears and lions about the ark, which killed some of those who came at it. He gives the plain sense beside the saying, that God shut the door against the waters (Rashi on Genesis 7:16:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 32:8).

The fourth is a measurement. Rashi reports that the ark sat eleven cubits deep in the water, like a loaded ship (Rashi on Genesis 7:17:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 32:9). On the fifteen cubits of the twentieth verse he reports that the water stood that high above the mountain tops (Rashi on Genesis 7:20:1, citing Yoma 76a). He also reports the reading that the birds of every wing include the locust (Rashi on Genesis 7:14:1, citing Chullin 139b).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, twenty eight under Midrash and twelve under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the sixth verse at 32:6 and 37:7, the tenth at 100:7, the twelfth at 27:2 and 5:1, and the thirteenth at 32:8. It reads the sixteenth verse at 34:1 and 49:2, the seventeenth at 32:9, the nineteenth at 32:10 and the twentieth at 32:11.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 7:1 and 7:3, the eleventh at 4:1 and 4:3, and the twenty third at 4:2. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the second verse at 19:2 and the seventh at 23:13. Bereshit Rabbati reads the fifteenth verse at Parashat Noah 36, and Midrash Lekach Tov reads the fifteenth at Genesis 7:15:1 and the twenty fourth at Genesis 7:24:1.

The Talmud is cited at Avodah Zarah 5b:11 and 51a:16 on the third verse, Bava Kamma 60b:6 on the fourth, and Bava Batra 123a:14 on the eighth. It is cited at Chullin 139b:19 on the fourteenth verse, Bava Batra 16b:15 on the twenty first and Bekhorot 46b:2 on the twenty second. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the fifth verse at Berakhot 1:6:8 and the fourteenth at Megillah 1:11:3, and Avot DeRabbi Natan reads the tenth at 32:1.