Genesis 6:19-21

WHAT WAS TO BE TAKEN INTO THE ARK?

"And every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shah be for food for thee, and for them."

This is a summary of what was to be done, and God would provide further instructions for Noah later. The manner of his bringing so many creatures into the ark was to be explained later. Also, the requirement that food should be taken was later elaborated to mean taking seven pairs of clean creatures instead of only one pair as it might have seemed from this summary.

These verses have stirred the imagination of mankind more than anything else in the record; but the simple words here are all that we can really know about the episode. Difficult questions may be raised, fanciful explanations offered, and arrogant denials shouted against it, but the sacred record stands! We receive it as the Word of God. The big thing in the narrative, after all, is not the details of what God commanded Noah to do, as affirmed by the last verse in the chapter.