Genesischapter 7
24 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Genesis Overview.
This chapter was written for Israel in the wilderness, a people who had watched the sea close over an Egyptian army, and tradition gives it to Moses. It tells the flood itself, and it reads like a ship's log, with dates, counts and measurements. It sets out who went into the ark, where the water came from and how far it rose. Listen for the dates in Noah's life that frame the account and for who closes the door. Notice also how the language of the first week of creation returns here in reverse. Read it as the middle of a story that has not yet turned.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the wilderness, learning that God keeps a calendar of his own
- What
- An account of Noah's household and the animals entering the ark and of the flood that covered the earth.
- Where
- Inside the ark, and on an earth going under water.
- When
- Before any dated history; the chapter dates the flood by Noah's life, from the seventeenth day of the second month of his six hundredth year.
- Why
- To show that God's judgment comes as He said it would and that He keeps safe those He has shut in.
Historical context
The chapter stands inside the generations of Noah and follows the family into the vessel. God gives the last command and then shuts the door.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The narrative is full of dates and counts, which is unusual for an ancient account of this kind. It names the day the rain began, forty days of rain, and a hundred and fifty days in which the water prevailed, and it reads the way a ship's log reads.
Clean animals come by sevens and unclean by twos. The distinction has been legislated nowhere in the story so far, which tells a reader that the categories were already held, and the extra clean animals are what makes the sacrifice at the end of chapter 8 possible.
Two sources of water are named, since the fountains of the great deep burst open and the windows of heaven were opened. The separation of the waters made in the first week is being let go.
God shuts the door. In a world where the owner of a ship sealed his own hatch, and where the Babylonian flood hero does exactly that in his account, the detail is deliberate.
Significance
For a people who had watched a sea open and close over an army, the ground was familiar, since the same water that drowns the wicked carries the rescued.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The dated and counted precision told them that this was history their fathers had handed down.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
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.
How it is read
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.
What the rabbis say
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.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Genesis 7, in Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain, about 1090; Radak, Radak on Genesis 7:6:1, 7:8:1, 7:10:1 and 7:15:1, in HaChut Hameshulash, translated by Eliyahu Munk, CC-BY, about 1200; Ibn Ezra, his three comments on Genesis 7, cited by reference; the licence Sefaria reports for the English version keeps the text out of the corpus; The Midrash and the Talmud, the forty locators on Genesis 7 in scripts/data/sources/sefaria/genesis/7.json; MannaFest, the annual cycle table at src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Enter the Ark, Two by Two
Genesis 7:1-3
The LORD tells Noah to enter the ark with all his family, and gives His reason: He has found Noah righteous in this generation. Clean and unclean animals are named here for the first time, long before Leviticus 11 sets the division down in law. The seven pairs of clean animals are what Noah will have to spare at the altar of Genesis 8:20. Verse 3 gives the purpose of the loading, to preserve their offspring.
Genesis 7:1
“For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation - Those are righteous indeed that are righteous before God; that have not only the form of godliness by which they appear righteous before men, who may easily be imposed upon; but the power of it, by which they approve themselves to God, who searcheth the heart.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
seven pairs of every kind: The Hebrew says seven seven, and readers divide over whether it means seven pairs or seven animals of each clean kind. The Berean reads seven pairs. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown counted seven, three pairs and a seventh kept for sacrifice.
Genesis 7:2
“Now let us consider by what means Noah commanded the clean animals to enter the ark, seven and seven, male and female (Gen. VII, 2): but of the unclean animals, two and two, so that the seed may be nourished in all the earth. And as I think, he asserts that the clean week begins; because the world and the sacred seventh number are clean. For it is not mixed with any other, nor is it generated from another.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Noah and the Ark, 12.39patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Genesis 7:2
“Of every clean beast - So we find the distinction between clean and unclean animals existed long before the Mosaic law. This distinction seems to have been originally designed to mark those animals which were proper for sacrifice and food, from those that were not. See Leviticus 11.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Genesis 7:2
“But what was the use of the seventh? It was manifestly reserved for sacrifice; and so that both during Noah's residence in the ark, and after his return to dry land, provision was made for celebrating the rites of worship according to the religion of fallen man.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
to preserve their offspring: The word the Berean gives as offspring is zera, seed, the word of the promise at 3:15. Birds go in by sevens along with the clean beasts. Ambrose read the loading as keeping seed alive for all the earth.
Genesis 7:4-5
For seven days from now: Seven days stand between the announcement and the rain. Forty days and forty nights appears here first in Scripture, and the span comes back as the measure of a testing, Moses on the mountain at Exodus 24:18 and Jesus in the wilderness at Matthew 4:2. Noah did all the LORD had commanded him.
Genesis 7:4
“For yet seven days - God spoke these words probably on the seventh or Sabbath day, and the days of the ensuing week were employed in entering the ark, in embarking the mighty troop, for whose reception ample provision had been already made. Forty days - This period became afterwards sacred, and was considered a proper space for humiliation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Genesis 7:4
“God granted one hundred years while the ark was being made to that generation, and still they did not repent. God summoned beasts that they had never seen and still they showed no remorse.”
Ephrem the Syrian · written before 373 · COMMENTARY ON GENESIS 6.10.2patristic
Genesis 7:4
“While Noah told them of the judgment at a distance, they were tempted to put off their repentance: but now he is ordered to tell them that it is at the door; that they have but one week more to turn them in, to see if that will now at last awaken them to consider the things that belong to their peace.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Noah did all that the LORD: This is the second report of Noah's full obedience, after 6:22, and it follows the warning of seven days. John Wesley read that week as a last call to the world outside the ark. The name here is the LORD, where 6:22 had God.
Genesis 7:5
“And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him,.... He prepared for his entrance into the ark, and all the creatures with him; got everything ready for them, the rooms for their habitation, and food for their sustenance.”
Genesis 7:6-10
Noah was 600 years old: Noah's age is given as 600 years, and the year fixes the flood inside the genealogy of Genesis 5. The seven days pass, the animals come to Noah two by two, clean and unclean together, and the floodwaters come upon the earth. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness at 2 Peter 2:5. No one else enters the ark.
Genesis 7:6
“And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth,.... When it began, for he was in his six hundred and first year when it ended, Gen 8:13 his eldest son was now an hundred years old, since when Noah was five hundred years old he begat children, Gen 5:32.”
entered the ark to escape: The entry is told twice, here in summary and again at verse 13, where it is dated to the day the fountains burst. Spurgeon read the household's coming into the ark as the covenant of 6:18 kept. The same household of eight appears in both.
Genesis 7:7
“GOD in infinite Grace had entered into Covenant with Noah that He would preserve him and his family alive. The tenor of that Covenant you will find in the 18th verse of the 6th chapter. "With you will I establish My Covenant; and you shall come into the ark, you, and your sons, and your wife, and your sons' wives with you." There was a positive foretelling of Noah's coming into the ark and finding safety.”
The clean and unclean animals: How so many kinds fit in the ark is an old question. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reckoned the distinct species of beasts and birds at no more than three hundred, the rest being varieties of climate. The crawling things are counted with the rest.
Genesis 7:8
“Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean,.... Seven couple of the one, and a couple of the other: and of fowls, clean and unclean, also a like number: and of everything that creepeth upon the earth; and upon that only, not in the water, for these had no need of the ark, they could live in the waters.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:8
“Christ was also represented in Noah, and the world, in that ark. For why were all living creatures shut up in that ark except to signify all the nations? For God did not lack the capability of creating anew every species of living things. For when no creatures were in existence, did he not say, "Let the earth bring forth" and the earth brought forth? So from the same source as he made them then, he could remake them. God made them by a word, so God could remake them by a word.”
Augustine of Hippo · written before 430 · TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 9.11.1patristic
came to Noah to enter: The animals come to Noah of themselves. Gill recorded two explanations, an instinct from God, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra held, or the ministry of angels. Two by two is the pattern for every kind, with the sevens of verse 2 added for the clean.
Genesis 7:9
“There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark,.... Of themselves, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, being impressed with an instinct from God so to do; or by the ministry of angels, as observed See Gill on Gen 6:20 there were two of a sort, and some think four: the male and the female; and of some seven, or seven pairs, as before observed: as God commanded Noah; which respects his own and his family's entrance and the creatures; both were commanded by God, and attended to by Noah, who was obedient in all things.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:9
“There went in two and two--Doubtless they were led by a divine impulse. The number would not be so large as at first sight one is apt to imagine. It has been calculated that there are not more than three hundred distinct species of beasts and birds, the immense varieties in regard to form, size, and color being traceable to the influence of climate and other circumstances.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
after seven days the floodwaters came: The LORD gave seven days of warning at verse 4, and the floodwaters came when they ended. Gill counted the waters as rising for 150 days. Bede read the seventh day as a sign of the Sabbath rest.
Genesis 7:10
“And it came to pass after seven days,.... Were ended, or on the seventh day, after God had given the orders to Noah, to prepare for his going into the ark, with his family, and all the creatures: that the waters of the flood were upon the earth: that is, they began to be upon the earth; for it continued to rain from hence forty days and forty nights; and still the waters continued to increase, and it was an hundred and fifty days before they began to ebb.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:10
“And when seven days had passed, the waters of the flood inundated the earth. The seventh day signifies the Sabbath, that is, the rest of future life.”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron)patristic
The Fountains of the Deep Burst Open
Genesis 7:11-12
all the fountains of the great deep: The water comes from below before it comes from above. Both sources open on the same day, the great deep from beneath and the floodgates overhead, so the waters God separated on the second day of Genesis 1 come back together. The date is given to the day, the seventeenth day of the second month. Genesis 8:14 dates the going out the same way.
Genesis 7:11
“In the six hundredth year, etc. - This must have been in the beginning of the six hundredth year of his life; for he was a year in the ark, Gen 8:13; and lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and died nine hundred and fifty years old, Gen 9:29; so it is evident that, when the flood commenced, he had just entered on his six hundredth year.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Genesis 7:11
“It was in the 600th year of Noah's life, which, by computation, appears to be 1656 years from the creation. The years of the old world are reckoned, not by the reigns of the giants, but the lives of the patriarchs; saints are of more account with God than princes. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Genesis 7:11
“The rain, which ordinarily descends in drops, then came down in streams. That God binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them; but now the bond was loosed, the cloud was rent, and such rains descended as were never known before or since.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
ConnectionsGenesis 8:2
the rain fell upon the earth: The rain lasts forty days and forty nights. Adam Clarke cited Lightfoot's reckoning, from the eighteenth day of the second month to the twenty-eighth of the third. Aben Ezra held that day and night could hardly be told apart during the flood, and Gill judged that the text tells against him.
Genesis 7:12
“And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights,.... So long it was falling upon it, after the windows of heaven were opened. Aben Ezra would have it, that all things were in such confusion, during the flood, that there was no difference between day and night, since, it is said, "day and night shall not cease any more"; and that after the waters ceased, then Noah knew that forty days and nights had passed, for God had revealed this secret to him; but the text seems more to make against him than for him.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:12
“The rain was upon the earth - Dr. Lightfoot supposes that the rain began on the 18th day of the second month, or Marcheshvan, and that it ceased on the 28th of the third month, Cisleu.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Genesis 7:13-16
On that very day Noah entered the ark: Eight people go in, named one at a time: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. Peter counts the same eight, saved through water, and reads the ark as a picture of baptism at 1 Peter 3:20 and 21. Every nation in the table of Genesis 10 comes out of Shem, Ham and Japheth. Then the LORD shut him in.
Genesis 7:13
“On that day, Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, his sons, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark.”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron)patristic
every kind of wild animal: The Hebrew repeats after its kind four times here, the wording of Genesis 1, where God made each creature according to its kind. Adam Clarke compared this gathering with the day God brought the animals to Adam to be named. The kinds of creation are kept.
two by two of every creature: The promise of 6:20 is kept. The pairs are those with the breath of life, the same kind of creature that perishes outside at verse 22. Adam Clarke held that only the power of God could bring and keep them.
Genesis 7:15
“And they went in, etc. - It was physically impossible for Noah to have collected such a vast number of tame and ferocious animals, nor could they have been retained in their wards by mere natural means. How then were they brought from various distances to the ark and preserved there? Only by the power of God. He who first miraculously brought them to Adam that he might give them their names, now brings them to Noah that he may preserve their lives.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Then the LORD shut him in: Both divine names stand in the verse. God gives the command, and the LORD shuts the door. Adam Clarke read the shutting as protection for Noah and a shutting out of the rest, after 120 years of waiting.
Genesis 7:16
“NOAH was a very different man from the rest of those who lived in his time, for the Grace of God had set a division between him and them. They forgot God and Noah feared Him. They lived for things seen and temporal and he lived in sight of the invisible. When he was building the ark, he was in a miserable minority, as men count heads. And, even after 120 years of ministry, when his ark was built and his family entered it, they were eight against many millions—an insignificant few, as men would say—a pitiful sect among mankind.”
3 more voices on this verse
Genesis 7:16
“When 'God shut Noah into the ark,' you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place.”
Justin Martyr · written before 165 · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter CXXVIIpatristic
Genesis 7:16
“There is much of our gospel duty and privilege to be seen in Noah's preservation in the ark. The apostle makes it a type of our baptism, that is, our Christianity, 1 Pet. iii. It is our great duty, in obedience to the gospel call, by a lively faith in Christ, to come into that way of salvation which God has provided for poor sinners.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Genesis 7:16
“The Lord shut him in - This seems to imply that God took him under his especial protection, and as he shut Him in, so he shut the Others out. God had waited one hundred and twenty years upon that generation; they did not repent; they filled up the measure of their iniquities, and then wrath came upon them to the uttermost.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
ConnectionsGenesis 8:6, John 10:9
The Waters Cover the Mountains
Genesis 7:17-18
the waters rose and lifted the ark: For forty days the flood keeps coming, and the same water that drowns the world lifts the ark high above it. Genesis gives the ark no rudder, no sail and no oars. It floats on the surface of the waters and goes where they carry it. Noah steers nothing.
Genesis 7:17
“The prevalence of the waters. The forty days are now completed. And at the end of this period the ark had been afloat for a long time. It was drifted on the waters in the direction in which they were flowing, and toward what was formerly the higher ground. Gen 7:19 Upon the land. - The land is to be understood of the portion of the earth’s surface known to man. This, with an unknown margin beyond it, was covered with the waters. But this is all that Scripture warrants us to assert.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:17
“When God judges he will overcome. If he begin, he will make an end; his way is perfect, both in judgment and mercy. The gradual approaches and advances of God's judgments, which are designed to bring sinners to repentance, are often abused to the hardening of them in their presumption.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the waters continued to surge: Surge renders gabar, to be mighty, and the same verb stands behind the waters that rose and prevailed at verses 20 and 24. The mighty men of 6:4 carry its root. In Gill's reading the ark floated gently, untroubled by wind.
Genesis 7:18
“And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth,.... Still they became greater and more powerful, as to bear up the ark, so to cast down houses, trees, &c. by the continual rains that fell, though perhaps they were not so violent as before, and by the constant eruptions of water out of the earth: and the ark went upon the face of the waters; it floated about upon them, in an easy gentle manner; for there were no storms of wind or tempests raised, which might endanger it.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 7:18
“That which to unbelievers is a savour of death unto death is to the faithful a savour of life unto life. The more the waters increased the higher the ark was lifted up towards heaven. Thus sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions; and as troubles abound consolations much more abound.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Genesis 7:19-20
all the high mountains under all the heavens: The waters cover every high mountain under all the heavens, and the depth over the mountaintops is given as fifteen cubits. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read a measured depth over the summits as language a local flood cannot carry. Other readers take all the heavens as the sky in view and the earth as the land Noah knew. Peter takes the flood as history at 2 Peter 3:6.
Genesis 7:19
“Moreover, the ark was carried above the waters, and the waters prevailed exceedingly, and all the high mountains under the entire heaven were covered.”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron)patristic
to a depth of fifteen cubits: Fifteen cubits is half the ark's height of 30 cubits at 6:15. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown gave the depth as twenty-two and a half feet over the mountaintops, which fits the cubit Clarke reckoned at eighteen inches.
Genesis 7:20
“Fifteen cubits upward . . . and the mountains were covered--twenty-two and a half feet above the summits of the highest hills. The language is not consistent with the theory of a partial deluge.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Genesis 7:21-24
every living thing that moved upon the earth: The dying is stated and never described. The single line of hope is that those in the ark remained. Jesus took these days as the picture of His own coming, that people ate and drank and married until the day Noah entered the ark, at Matthew 24:38 and 39. The water stands over the earth for 150 days.
Genesis 7:21
“Besides, now that the human race was reduced to one single family, it was necessary that the beasts should be proportionally diminished, otherwise by their numbers they would have acquired the ascendancy and overmastered the few that were to repeople the world. Thus goodness was mingled with severity; the Lord exercises judgment in wisdom and in wrath remembers mercy.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
breath of life in its nostrils: The phrase goes back to 2:7, where the LORD God breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils. Dry land limits the loss to land creatures. Adam Clarke concluded that only animals unable to live in the water were taken into the ark.
Genesis 7:22
“Of all that was in the dry land - From this we may conclude that such animals only as could not live in the water were preserved in the ark.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
only Noah and those with him: Blotted out is the verb of 6:7, and 7:4 gives it as wipe from the face of the earth. The word for remained is the root of the Hebrew word for remnant, which the prophets use of the few who survive judgment. Matthew Henry counted a spared life a great favour.
Genesis 7:23
“But he comforts himself with this, that he is in the way of duty and in the way of deliverance. And we are taught ( Jer. xlv. 4, 5 ) that when desolating judgments are abroad we must not seek great nor pleasant things to ourselves, but reckon it an unspeakable favour if we have our lives given us for a prey.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the waters prevailed upon the earth: From the seventeenth day of the second month at 7:11 to the seventeenth day of the seventh month at 8:4 is five months, which gives 150 days in months of thirty days. Lightfoot, cited by Adam Clarke, counted the forty days of rain apart from the 150. Read by these dates, the forty fall inside it.
Genesis 7:24
“And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days - The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, and the raining forty days and nights, had raised the waters fifteen cubits above the highest mountains; after which forty days it appears to have continued at this height for one hundred and fifty days more. “So,” says Dr.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
ConnectionsGenesis 8:3
How this psalm is built
The form: A dated narrative of the entering and the rising of the waters, closed on a count of days, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| As the LORD had commanded him | The line returns at verse 5, verse 9 and verse 16, and it is the only comment the chapter makes on Noah's own part in the account. John Gill reads it of both the family and the creatures, holding that both were commanded by God and attended to by Noah, who was obedient in all things. The refrain carries the whole of the man's response, since he stays silent through the chapter.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Genesis 7:9. | Genesis 7:5, Genesis 7:9, Genesis 7:16 |
| The waters prevailed, said over and over | The verb comes back at verses 17, 18, 19, 20 and 24, each time with the water higher or holding longer. Matthew Henry reads the repetition as the gradual approaches and advances of God's judgments, which are designed to bring sinners to repentance and are often abused to harden them instead. The chapter uses the figure to measure time as well as depth, and the last use of it carries the hundred and fifty days.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Genesis 7:17. | Genesis 7:17, Genesis 7:18, Genesis 7:19, Genesis 7:20, Genesis 7:24 |
| The water from below and the water from above | Verse 11 names two sources in one line, the deep below and the heavens above, and it dates the opening of both to the same day. This site's published exposition of verses 11 and 12 reads the pair as the undoing of the second day of Genesis 1, where the waters above and the waters below were separated. John Wesley reads the second half of the pair by its quantity, that rain which ordinarily descends in drops then came down in streams.This site's published exposition of Genesis, the published note on Genesis 7:11 and 12 in the store, whose sources are Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, and Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible. | Genesis 7:11, Genesis 7:12 |
| The living listed by kind, going in and going down | The same orders of creature are listed twice over, at verses 14 and 15 as they enter and at verses 21 to 23 as they die: the wild kinds and the livestock, the crawling things and the birds, with mankind among them. John Gill marks the list of verse 21 as the creatures that had animal life in them, of which motion was the sign. John Wesley reads their inclusion in the judgment as a statement about man, since the creatures were his servants and part of his possession.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Genesis 7:21. | Genesis 7:14, Genesis 7:15, Genesis 7:21, Genesis 7:23 |
The debate over the extent of the flood
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The worldwide reading. On this reading the waters covered the whole earth, and the text's own measurements are the reason. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown rest the case on verse 20, holding that a stated depth of fifteen cubits above the summits of the highest hills, which they put at twenty-two and a half feet, is language a partial deluge cannot carry (Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Genesis 7:20). Adam Clarke holds the universality of the deluge and treats the volume of water as the one real difficulty, referring the objector to Mr. Ray's Physico-theological Discourses of 1693 (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Genesis 7:20). This site's published dossier records the same position as the traditional reading, following the text's own repeated totalizing language. The strongest objection to it is the one the dossier records on the other side, the absence of matching worldwide geological evidence.
The limited reading. On this reading the flood was a real catastrophe over the whole of the world Noah knew, and the sweeping words of verses 19 to 23 are read at the scale of that world. Albert Barnes states the position at verses 17 to 19 and states its limit with it: the land is to be understood of the portion of the earth's surface known to man, this with an unknown margin beyond it was covered with the waters, and that is as far as he holds Scripture to warrant an assertion (Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Genesis 7:17). This site's published exposition of verses 19 and 20 records readers who take all the heavens as the sky in view and the earth as the land Noah knew. The site's dossier attributes the position to evangelicals reading the whole earth as the Mesopotamian basin. The strongest objection to it is the measured depth of verse 20, which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown press as the point the reading has to answer.
The question is argued in full behind the door to The Flood and it is left open here. The two readings agree on what the chapter reports, a judgment that took every living thing outside the ark, and they divide over how much ground that judgment covered.
The New Testament's use
Jesus takes these days as the picture of His own coming. This site's published exposition of verses 21 to 24 records Matthew 24:38 and 39, where people ate and drank and married until the day Noah entered the ark.
Peter reads the chapter twice over. This site's published exposition of verses 13 to 16 records 1 Peter 3:20 and 21, which counts the eight saved through water and reads the ark as a picture of baptism, and Matthew Henry reads verse 16 the same way, that the apostle makes the preservation a type of baptism and so of the Christian's own entry into the way of salvation God provided (Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Genesis 7:16). This site's published exposition of verses 19 and 20 records 2 Peter 3:6, where the apostle takes the flood as history and argues from it.
What the chapter states and what rests on it
What the text says is exact and it is worth separating from what has been built on it. Verse 11 dates the beginning to a day of a month of a year. Verse 12 gives the rain forty days and forty nights. Verse 20 gives a depth of fifteen cubits over the mountaintops. Verse 24 gives a hundred and fifty days of prevailing water. Those four are the chapter's own figures.
What the commentators supply is the conversion and the reckoning, and each is named with its holder above: Clarke on the year and on Lightfoot's months, Henry on the 1656 years from the creation, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on the fifteen cubits in feet and on the number of species. What remains contested is the geographic reach, argued under its own heading and settled by neither side here.
Keep studying
Studies9
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Genesis 7:11; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1336: "A Family Sermon" (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition), 1877 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Genesis 7:17.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Ambrose of Milan, On Noah and the Ark, 12.39; Bede, Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1336: “A Family Sermon” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Chuck Missler, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.