Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female . I .e. of clean fowls, "which he leaves to be understood out of the foregoing verse" (Poole). The Samaritan, Syriac, and LXX . (not so Vulgate, Onkelos, Arabic) insert the word "clean unnecessarily, and also add," και Ì α ̓ πο Ì πα ì ντων τω ͂ ν πετεινω ͂ ν τω ͂ νν μη Ì καθαρω ͂ ν δυ ì ο δυ ì ο α ̓ ì ρσεν και Ì θη ͂ λυ , " manifestly to make the verse resemble... read more
For yet seven days . Literally, for today's yet seven—after seven days; thus giving Noah time to complete his preparations, and the world one more opportunity to repent, which Poole thinks many may have done, though their bodies were drowned for their former impenitency. And I will cause it to rain —literally, I causing it, the participle indicating the certainty of the future action— upon the earth forty days and forty nights . The importance assigned in subsequent Scripture to... read more
And Noah was six hundred years old. Literally, a sum of six hundred years, i.e. in his 600th year (cf. Genesis 7:11 ). The number six "is generally a Scriptural symbol of suffering. Christ suffered on the sixth day. In the Apocalypse the sixth seal, the sixth trumpet, the sixth vial introduce critical periods of affliction" (Wordsworth). When the flood of waters was upon the earth. read more
And Noah went in. I .e. began to go in a full week before the waters came ( vide Genesis 7:10 ). " A proof of faith and a warning to the world." And his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him . In all eight persons ( 1 Peter 3:20 ); whence it is obvious that "each had but one wife, and that polygamy, as it began among the Cainites, was most probably confined to them" (Poole). Into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Literally, from the face of the... read more
Realized salvation. "And Noah went in," &c.; "And the Lord shut him in" ( Genesis 7:7 , Genesis 7:10 , Genesis 7:16 ). I. The CONTRAST between the position of the BELIEVER and that of the UNBELIEVER . The difference between a true freedom and a false. " Shut in" by the Lord to obedience, but also to peace and safety. The world's judgment shut out . The restraints and privations of a religious life only temporary. The ark will be opened hereafter. II. THE METHOD... read more
Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two into the ark, the male and the female. In obedience to a Divine impulse. Nothing short of Divine power could have effected such a timely and orderly entrance of the creatures into the huge vessel (cf. their mode of exit, Genesis 8:18 ). The seeming inconsistency of this verse with Genesis 7:2 , which says that the clean animals entered the ark by... read more
And it came to pass after seven days (literally, at the seventh of the days ) , that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. read more
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month. Not read more
In the selfsame day —literally, in the bone, or strength, or essence ( Genesis 2:23 ) of that day—in that very day (cf. Genesis 17:23 , Genesis 17:26 ); "about noonday, i.e. in the public view of the world" (Poole) a phrase intended to convey the idea of the utmost precision of time" (Bush)— entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the wives of his three sons with them, into the ark . Not inconsistent with Genesis 7:4 , Genesis... read more
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The Pulpit Commentary - Genesis 7:2
Of every clean beast . That the distinction between clean and unclean animals was at this time understood is easier to believe than that the writer would perpetrate the glaring anachronism of introducing in prediluvian times what only took its rise several centuries later (Kalisch). That this distinction was founded on nature, "every tribe of mankind being able to distinguish between the sheep and the hyena, the dove and the vulture" ('Speaker's Commentary'), or "on an immediate conscious... read more