Notes for Gen 7:1LEB
Heb "for you I see [as] godly before me in this generation." The direct object ("you") is placed first in the clause to give it prominence. The verb "to see" here signifies Elohim’s evaluative discernment.
Notes for Gen 7:2LEB
Or "seven pairs" (cf. NRSV).
For a study of the Levitical terminology of "clean" and "unclean," see L. E. Toombs, IDB 1:643.
Heb "a male and his female" (also a second time at the end of this verse). The terms used here for male and female animals (אִישׁ, ’ish) and אִשָּׁה, ’ishah) normally refer to humans.
Notes for Gen 7:3LEB
Or "seven pairs" (cf. NRSV).
Here (and in v. 9) the Hebrew text uses the normal generic terms for "male and female" (זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, zakhar unéqevah).
Heb "to keep alive offspring."
Notes for Gen 7:4LEB
Heb "for seven days yet," meaning "after [or "in"] seven days."
The Hiphil participle מַמְטִיר (mamtir, "cause to rain") here expresses the certainty of the act in the imminent future.
Notes for Gen 7:6LEB
Heb "Now Noah was." The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + predicate nominative after implied "to be" verb) provides background information. The age of Noah receives prominence.
Heb "and the flood was water upon." The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) is circumstantial/temporal in relation to the preceding clause. The verb הָיָה (hayah) here carries the nuance "to come" (BDB 225 s.v. הָיָה). In this context the phrase "come upon" means "to engulf."
Notes for Gen 7:7LEB
The preposition מִן (min) is causal here, explaining why Noah and his family entered the ark.
Notes for Gen 7:8LEB
Heb "two two" meaning "in twos."
Notes for Gen 7:9LEB
The Hebrew text of Gen 7:8–9LEB reads, "From the clean animal[s] and from the animal[s] which are not clean and from the bird[s] and everything that creeps on the ground, two two they came to Noah to the ark, male and female."
Heb "Noah"; the pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
Notes for Gen 7:11LEB
The Hebrew term תְּהוֹם (téhom, "deep") refers to the watery deep, the salty ocean – especially the primeval ocean that surrounds and underlies the earth (see Gen 1:2LEB).
The watery deep. The same Hebrew term used to describe the watery deep in Gen 1:2LEB (תְּהוֹם, tihom) appears here. The text seems to picture here subterranean waters coming from under the earth and contributing to the rapid rise of water. The significance seems to be, among other things, that in this judgment Elohim was returning the world to its earlier condition of being enveloped with water – a judgment involving the reversal of creation. On Gen 7:11LEB see G. F. Hasel, "The Fountains of the Great Deep," Origins 1 (1974): 67-72; idem, "The Biblical View of the Extent of the Flood," Origins 2 (1975): 77-95.
On the prescientific view of the sky reflected here, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World (AnBib), 46.
Notes for Gen 7:13LEB
Heb "On that very day Noah entered, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and the wife of Noah, and the three wives of his sons with him into the ark."
Notes for Gen 7:14LEB
The verb "entered" is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
Heb "every bird, every wing."
Notes for Gen 7:15LEB
Heb "two two" meaning "in twos."
Heb "flesh."
Notes for Gen 7:16LEB
Heb "Those that went in, male and female from all flesh they went in."
Notes for Gen 7:18LEB
Heb "and the waters were great and multiplied exceedingly." The first verb in the sequence is וַיִּגְבְּרוּ (vayyigbéru, from גָּבַר, gavar), meaning "to become great, mighty." The waters did not merely rise; they "prevailed" over the earth, overwhelming it.
Heb "went."
Notes for Gen 7:19LEB
Heb "and the waters were great exceedingly, exceedingly." The repetition emphasizes the depth of the waters.
Heb "and."
Notes for Gen 7:20LEB
Heb "rose fifteen cubits." Since a cubit is considered by most authorities to be about eighteen inches, this would make the depth 22.5 feet. This figure might give the modern reader a false impression of exactness, however, so in the translation the phrase "fifteen cubits" has been rendered "more than twenty feet."
Heb "the waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward and they covered the mountains." Obviously, a flood of twenty feet did not cover the mountains; the statement must mean the flood rose about twenty feet above the highest mountain.
Notes for Gen 7:22LEB
Heb "everything which [has] the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils from all which is in the dry land."
Notes for Gen 7:23LEB
Heb "and he"; the referent (the Yahweh) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
Heb "wiped away" (cf. NRSV "blotted out").
Heb "from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky."
The Hebrew verb שָׁאָר (sha’ar) means "to be left over; to survive" in the Niphal verb stem. It is the word used in later biblical texts for the remnant that escapes judgment. See G. F. Hasel, "Semantic Values of Derivatives of the Hebrew Root š’r," AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.
Notes for Gen 7:24LEB
The Hebrew verb translated "prevailed over" suggests that the waters were stronger than the earth. The earth and everything in it were no match for the return of the chaotic deep.
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