Reading Guide
How the text is marked:
• Words in italics — added for English grammar (not in the Hebrew text)
• raqia — transliterated Hebrew terms kept untranslated (explained in notes)
• wind/spirit — a word the Hebrew leaves open to two meanings, both kept
• "…" — direct speech of God
Notes are tagged by type — Critical · Lexical · Grammatical · Theological — each shown with its colour (see the legend at the top of the Notes view).
This chapter narrates the entry into the tebah and the onset of the flood. The tension between "two from all" (6:19) and "seven seven" of clean animals (7:2) is preserved without harmonization per Rule 22. The cosmological mechanism — fountains of the deep and windows of the sky — reverses the Day 2 separation of waters (Gen 1:6–7). Divine name distribution shifts between YHWH and Elohim within the chapter.
Supplementary — patterns across the chapter
And YHWH said to Noach (Noah), "Come, you and all your household, into the tebah, for you I have seen as righteous before me in this generation.
From all the clean livestock you shall take for yourself seven seven, a man and his woman, and from the livestock which is not clean, two, a man and his woman.
• Tension with Gen 6:19: Gen 6:19 says "two from all." Gen 7:2 says "seven seven" of the clean. This is the most visible numerical tension in the flood narrative. Rule 22 + No-Harmonization Principle: both are translated as MT reads them.
Also from the bird of the sky, seven seven, male and female, to keep alive seed on the face of all the land.
For in yet seven days I am sending rain upon the land, forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe every standing thing which I made from upon the face of the ground."
And Noah did according to all that YHWH commanded him.
And Noah was six hundred years old, and the flood of waters was upon the land.
And Noah went, and his sons and his woman and the women of his sons with him, into the tebah, from the face of the waters of the flood.
From the clean livestock and from the livestock which is not clean, and from the bird, and from everything that creeps upon the ground,
two two they came to Noah into the tebah, male and female, as God commanded Noah.
And it was at seven of the days, and the waters of the flood were upon the land.
In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the windows of the sky were opened.
• אֲרֻבֹּת הַשָּׁמַיִם (arubbot ha-shamayim) = "windows of the sky." The sky has openings through which the waters above the raqia descend.
• This reverses Gen 1:6–7: the raqia was placed to separate waters above from waters below. The flood undoes Day 2 — the cosmic water-boundary is breached from both directions. De-creation.
And the rain was upon the land forty days and forty nights.
On this very day Noah entered, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and the woman of Noah and the three women of his sons with them, into the tebah —
they, and every living thing to its kind, and every livestock to its kind, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the land to its kind, and every bird to its kind, every winged thing.
And they came to Noah into the tebah, two two from all the flesh in which is breath of life.
And those coming, male and female from all flesh they came, as God commanded him; and YHWH shut it behind him.
And the flood was forty days upon the land, and the waters increased and lifted the tebah, and it rose from upon the land.
And the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the land, and the tebah went upon the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed very very upon the land, and all the high mountains which were under all the sky were covered.
Fifteen cubits upward the waters prevailed, and the mountains were covered.
And all flesh that moves upon the land perished — the bird and the livestock and the living thing and every swarming thing that swarms upon the land, and every human.
Everything which had breath of the wind/spirit of life in its nostrils, from all which was on the dry ground, died.
And he wiped every standing thing which was on the face of the ground, from human to livestock to creeping thing to bird of the sky, and they were wiped from the land; and only Noah remained, and those with him in the tebah.
And the waters prevailed upon the land one hundred and fifty days.
Glossary
Supplementary — patterns across the chapter
CROSS-CHAPTER TRACKING (Gen 6 → Gen 7)
• 6:22: "Noah did according to all that God commanded him; so he did"
• 7:5: "Noah did according to all that YHWH commanded him"
• 7:9: "as God commanded Noah"
• 7:16: "as God commanded him"
• Note the divine name alternation within the formula: God (6:22) → YHWH (7:5) → God (7:9, 7:16a) → YHWH closes the ark (7:16b).
"Two from all" tension:
• 6:19: "two from all you shall bring"
• 7:2: "seven seven" of clean, "two" of unclean
• 7:9: "two two they came"
• 7:15: "two two from all flesh"
• The tension is internal to the text. Rule 22: translate as MT reads, without harmonization.
Creation reversal continues:
• Gen 1:6–7: raqia separates waters above from waters below
• Gen 7:11: "fountains of the great deep burst open, windows of the sky opened" — Day 2's separation undone
• Gen 1: "God saw that good" → Gen 7:23: "he wiped every standing thing"
• The lemin formula (to its kind) from Gen 1 appears in 7:14 — creation categories structure preservation
De-creation mechanism:
• The flood is not merely "a lot of rain." It is the structural reversal of the raqia separation (Gen 1:6–7). Waters above + waters below = the pre-creation state of Gen 1:2 (tehom). The flood is de-creation by water-reunion.
"Breath of life" chain:
• 2:7: God breathes nishmat chayyim (breath of life) into the human
• 6:17: all flesh with ruach chayyim (spirit of life) will die
• 7:15: "two two from all flesh in which is ruach chayyim"
• 7:22: "everything which had nishmat ruach chayyim" (breath of the wind/spirit of life) — the most expanded form, combining both earlier phrases
Divine name distribution in Gen 7:
• vv.1–5: YHWH (personal command to Noah)
• vv.7–10: no divine name (narrative)
• v.9: God/Elohim ("as God commanded")
• v.16a: God/Elohim ("as God commanded him")
• v.16b: YHWH ("YHWH shut behind him")
• vv.17–24: no divine name (description of the flood)
END OF GENESIS 7 — THE TRANSPARENT TRANSLATION (ENGLISH)
"A translation with nothing hidden."