Genesischapter 7

24 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 194 cross-references outward and receives 131 — heaviest partner: Genesis.

Chapter summary

The flood comes. Noah and his family and the animals enter the ark; the LORD shuts them in. The fountains of the great deep are broken up, the windows of heaven opened; forty days and forty nights of rain. Every living thing that moved upon the earth dies — only those in the ark remain alive. Henry finds the chapter almost unbearable to read; Calvin marks the double source of the waters (below and above) as an undoing of the second day's separation. The chapter's refrain is ‘as God had commanded him’ — Noah's obedience in the face of a world that has forgotten obedience.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Genesis overview for the book's full setting.

1 And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female; and of the beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female:

3 of the birds also of the heavens, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground.

5 And Noah did according unto all that Jehovah commanded him.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creepeth upon the ground,

9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah.