Genesis 7
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 7
1 The Lord said to Noah, “Enter into the ark with your entire family, for I have seen that you, of all this generation, are just in my sight. 2 You are to take seven pairs of each type of clean animal with you, male and female. You are to take one pair of each type of unclean animal with you, male and female. 3 You are also to take seven pairs of birds of the air, male and female, with you, so that you may save every species of animal upon the earth. 4 In seven days I will make it begin to rain upon the earth, and it will rain for forty days and forty nights. I will destroy from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him to do.
End of the Sinful World.[a] 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood began and the waters covered the earth. 7 Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and the wives of his sons to escape from the waters of the flood. 8 The clean animals and the unclean animals, the birds, and the creatures that creep on the ground[b] 9 entered the ark two by two, male and female, along with Noah, just as the Lord had commanded. 10 After seven days, the waters of the flood covered the earth; 11 this happened in the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month. On that very day the springs of the great abyss and the floodgates of the heavens opened.[c] 12 The rains fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 That day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth entered the ark along with the wife of Noah and the three wives of his sons. 14 They entered along with all living creatures according to their kind, all cattle according to their kind, all creeping creatures according to their kind, and all birds according to their kind. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two by two, every creature that had breath in it. 16 Those that came, male and female of every type of flesh, entered the ark as God had commanded. The Lord closed the door after them.
17 The flood lasted for forty days. The waters rose and lifted the ark off the earth as they increased. 18 The waters continued to swell and increased greatly on the earth until the ark floated upon the waters. 19 The waters rose more and more on the earth and covered all the highest mountains that are under the heavens. 20 The waters were fifteen cubits over the tops of the mountains that they covered.
21 Every living creature that moves upon the earth, every bird, cattle, wild animal, and creature that crawls upon the earth, and every single person on dry land died. 22 Every creature on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
23 This is how every living creature on earth was slain, every human being and every animal, every reptile and every bird of the air. They were blotted out of the earth, and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.[d]
24 The waters covered the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
Footnotes
- Genesis 7:6 In this section the entrance into the ark and the description of the flood are repeated, first in the Yahwist version with inserts from the Priestly tradition (vv. 1-12) and then in the Priestly version with inserts from the Yahwist tradition (vv. 13-20); finally, there is a description of the effects of the flood that draws on both traditions (vv. 21-24). In the Yahwist tradition the flood is simply a torrential rain that continues for forty days (vv. 4, 12; 8:2b), while in the Priestly account, in keeping with the cosmic vision in Genesis 1:1-10, the waters are loosed both from the subterranean ocean and from the heavenly ocean (7:11; 8:2a).
According to the ideas of the ancients, in creating the world God separated the earth from the waters by creating the solid heavenly vault that divided the oceanic mass (the “abyss”) into an upper part beyond the heavens and a lower, earthly part, and by then commanding the lower waters to retreat, allowing the dry land to emerge. At this point, then, the lower, subterranean waters invade the earth anew through springs, while passages (“floodgates”) open in the heavenly vault and allow the upper waters to pour down. Thus God causes some effects of his creative work to cease. The waters that submerge the highest mountains on earth and destroy humankind and the animals effect a return of the universe to its primitive condition; the process is an image of the cosmic dimensions that sin, the rejection of God, has. - Genesis 7:8 This verse, which seems to be the work of the final editor, brings the Yahwist source, which distinguishes between clean and unclean animals, into harmony with the Priestly source, which has the animals in pairs.
- Genesis 7:11 According to the calendar used in the Priestly story of the flood, the year is divided into twelve months of about thirty days each, depending always on the cycle of the moon. The first month, equivalent to Nisan, is the month of the first lunar cycle in the spring (March-April).
- Genesis 7:23 The flood prefigures the final judgment (Mt 24:37-41) and salvation through baptism (1 Pet 3:20-21).
Genesis 7
The Message
7 Next God said to Noah, “Now board the ship, you and all your family—out of everyone in this generation, you’re the righteous one.
2-4 “Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female; and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival on Earth. In just seven days I will pour rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I’ll make a clean sweep of everything that I’ve made.”
5 Noah did everything God commanded him.
6-10 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth. Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven days the floodwaters came.
11-12 It was the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
13-16 That’s the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons’ wives, boarded the ship. And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies. They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs—everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then God shut the door behind him.
17-23 The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered—the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Everything died. Anything that moved—dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life—dead. And all people—dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; he wiped out the whole works—people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.
24 The floodwaters took over for 150 days.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson