Genesis 7:1-24

7:1 The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation. ¹  7:2 You must take with you seven ²  of every kind of clean animal, ³  the male and its mate, ⁴  two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate, 7:3 and also seven ⁵  of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, ⁶  to preserve their offspring ⁷  on the face of the earth. 7:4 For in seven days ⁸  I will cause it to rain ⁹  on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”

7:5 And Noah did all ¹⁰  that the Lord commanded him.

7:6 Noah ¹¹  was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed ¹²  the earth. 7:7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because ¹³  of the floodwaters. 7:8 Pairs ¹⁴  of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground, 7:9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, ¹⁵  just as God had commanded him. ¹⁶  7:10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth. ¹⁷ 

7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month – on that day all the fountains of the great deep ¹⁸  burst open and the floodgates of the heavens ¹⁹  were opened. 7:12 And the rain fell ²⁰  on the earth forty days and forty nights.

7:13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives. ²¹  7:14 They entered, ²²  along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings. ²³  7:15 Pairs ²⁴  of all creatures ²⁵  that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah. 7:16 Those that entered were male and female, ²⁶  just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.

7:17 The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth. 7:18 The waters completely overwhelmed ²⁷  the earth, and the ark floated ²⁸  on the surface of the waters. 7:19 The waters completely inundated ²⁹  the earth so that even ³⁰  all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered. 7:20 The waters rose more than twenty feet ³¹  above the mountains. ³²  7:21 And all living things ³³  that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind. 7:22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life ³⁴  in its nostrils died. 7:23 So the Lord ³⁵  destroyed ³⁶  every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. ³⁷  They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived. ³⁸  7:24 The waters prevailed over ³⁹  the earth for 150 days.

Genesis 14:22-23

14:22 But Abram replied to the king of Sodom, “I raise my hand ⁴⁰  to the Lord, the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, and vow ⁴¹  14:23 that I will take nothing ⁴²  belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal. That way you can never say, ‘It is I ⁴³  who made Abram rich.’

Jeremiah 5:12-14

5:12 “These people have denied what the Lord says. ⁴⁴ 

They have said, ‘That is not so! ⁴⁵ 

No harm will come to us.

We will not experience war and famine. ⁴⁶ 

5:13 The prophets will prove to be full of wind. ⁴⁷ 

The Lord has not spoken through them. ⁴⁸ 

So, let what they say happen to them.’”

5:14 Because of that, ⁴⁹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ⁵⁰  said to me, ⁵¹ 

“Because these people have spoken ⁵²  like this, ⁵³ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁵⁴ 

Jeremiah 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ⁵⁵  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ⁵⁶  mine or theirs.’

Daniel 9:12

9:12 He has carried out his threats ⁵⁷  against us and our rulers ⁵⁸  who were over ⁵⁹  us by bringing great calamity on us – what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven!

Zechariah 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ⁶⁰  Then they paid attention ⁶¹  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

[7:1]  ¹ tn 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 God’s evaluative discernment.

[7:2]  ² tn Or “seven pairs” (cf. NRSV).

[7:2]  ³ sn For a study of the Levitical terminology of “clean” and “unclean,” see L. E. Toombs, IDB 1:643.

[7:2]  ⁴ tn 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.

[7:3]  ⁵ tn Or “seven pairs” (cf. NRSV).

[7:3]  ⁶ tn Here (and in v. 9) the Hebrew text uses the normal generic terms for “male and female” (זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, zakhar unÿqevah).

[7:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “to keep alive offspring.”

[7:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “for seven days yet,” meaning “after [or “in”] seven days.”

[7:4]  ⁹ tn The Hiphil participle מַמְטִיר (mamtir, “cause to rain”) here expresses the certainty of the act in the imminent future.

[7:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “according to all.”

[7:6]  ¹¹ tn 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.

[7:6]  ¹² tn 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.”

[7:7]  ¹³ tn The preposition מִן (min) is causal here, explaining why Noah and his family entered the ark.

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “two two” meaning “in twos.”

[7:9]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text of vv. 8-9a 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.”

[7:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Noah”; the pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “came upon.”

[7:11]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term תְּהוֹם (tÿhom, “deep”) refers to the watery deep, the salty ocean – especially the primeval ocean that surrounds and underlies the earth (see Gen 1:2).

[7:11]  ¹⁹ sn On the prescientific view of the sky reflected here, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World (AnBib), 46.

[7:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “was.”

[7:13]  ²¹ tn 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.”

[7:14]  ²² tn The verb “entered” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:14]  ²³ tn Heb “every bird, every wing.”

[7:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “two two” meaning “in twos.”

[7:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “flesh.”

[7:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Those that went in, male and female from all flesh they went in.”

[7:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and the waters were great and multiplied exceedingly.” The first verb in the sequence is וַיִּגְבְּרוּ (vayyigbÿru, from גָּבַר, gavar), meaning “to become great, mighty.” The waters did not merely rise; they “prevailed” over the earth, overwhelming it.

[7:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “went.”

[7:19]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and the waters were great exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition emphasizes the depth of the waters.

[7:19]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and.”

[7:20]  ³¹ tn 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.”

[7:20]  ³² tn 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.

[7:21]  ³³ tn Heb “flesh.”

[7:22]  ³⁴ tn Heb “everything which [has] the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils from all which is in the dry land.”

[7:23]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:23]  ³⁶ tn Heb “wiped away” (cf. NRSV “blotted out”).

[7:23]  ³⁷ tn Heb “from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky.”

[7:23]  ³⁸ tn 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 só’r,” AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.

[7:24]  ³⁹ sn 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.

[14:22]  ⁴⁰ tn Abram takes an oath, raising his hand as a solemn gesture. The translation understands the perfect tense as having an instantaneous nuance: “Here and now I raise my hand.”

[14:22]  ⁴¹ tn The words “and vow” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[14:23]  ⁴² tn The oath formula is elliptical, reading simply: “…if I take.” It is as if Abram says, “[May the Lord deal with me] if I take,” meaning, “I will surely not take.” The positive oath would add the negative adverb and be the reverse: “[God will deal with me] if I do not take,” meaning, “I certainly will.”

[14:23]  ⁴³ tn The Hebrew text adds the independent pronoun (“I”) to the verb form for emphasis.

[5:12]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “have denied the Lord.” The words “What…says” are implicit in what follows.

[5:12]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “he will do nothing”; Heb “Not he [or it]!”

[5:12]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “we will not see the sword and famine.”

[5:13]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “will be wind.”

[5:13]  ⁴⁸ tc Heb “the word is not in them.” The MT has a highly unusual form here, the Piel perfect with the definite article (הַדִּבֵּר, haddibber). It is undoubtedly best to read with the LXX (Greek version) and one Hebrew ms the article on the noun (הַדָּבָר, haddavar).

[5:14]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  ⁵¹ tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ⁵² tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ⁵³ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[44:28]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

[44:28]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).

[9:12]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “he has fulfilled his word(s) which he spoke.”

[9:12]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “our judges.”

[9:12]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “who judged.”

[1:6]  ⁶⁰ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

[1:6]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”