Genesis 7:2

2. Every clean beast “The objection that this was an anticipation of the Levitical distinction of beasts into clean and unclean, is wholly groundless . The boundary line between clean and unclean animals is marked by nature. Every tribe of mankind would distinguish between the sheep and the hyena, between the dove and the vulture. Whether animal food was eaten before the deluge or not, it is certain that flocks and herds were fed for the sake of their milk and wool, and that of them victims were offered in sacrifice. This alone would separate between the clean and the unclean. It is not improbable, that the distinction even of the names clean and unclean had been fully established by custom long before it was recognised and ratified by the law.” Speaker’s Com.

By sevens Heb, seven seven. Seven pairs of every clean beast is, doubtless, the meaning of the writer, as implied by the additional words, the male and his female. This statement Kalisch declares to be totally “irreconcilable with the preceding narrative,” and imagines that the discrepancy may be easily explained by the hypothesis of Elohistic and Jehovistic documents. He supposes that the Jehovist “prudently introduced the significant number of seven pairs” in order to provide for Noah’s offering of clean beasts and fowls after the flood. Genesis 8:20. And yet he admits that the Jehovist “neither thought, nor did he in any way intend, to be in opposition to the statement of the Elohist . He understood the two animals which Noah was to bring, as merely signifying that always male and female were to be chosen, that they were to be pairs, without the number of these pairs being stated; for he writes: ‘Two and two went in to Noah into the ark, male and female, as Elohim had commanded Noah.’” Genesis 7:9. Is it not strange that a writer who can so readily understand that this “Jehovist” (who wrote the narrative as it now stands, and “designed full harmony with the Elohist”) saw no discrepancy here, but “understood that they were to be pairs without the number of these pairs being stated,” will insist that the two statements are utterly irreconcilable with each other? If the “Jehovist” had no trouble in reconciling these statements, probably Moses had none; nor need we. “The command here is but an amplification of the former injunction, which had probably been given one hundred and twenty years before. In the first instance it was said that Noah’s family should be preserved, together with a pair of every kind of beast. In the second, that, while the general rule should be the saving of a single pair, yet, in the case of the clean beasts there should be preserved not one pair only, but seven.” Speaker’s Com.