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 23:1

The Death of Sarah

23:1 Sarah lived 127 years. ⁴⁰ 

Exodus 7:2

7:2 You are to speak ⁴¹  everything I command you, ⁴²  and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh that he must release ⁴³  the Israelites from his land.

Ezekiel 3:10-11

3:10 And he said to me, “Son of man, take all my words that I speak to you to heart and listen carefully. 3:11 Go to the exiles, to your fellow countrymen, ⁴⁴  and speak to them – say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ whether they pay attention or not.”

Jonah 3:2

3:2 “Go immediately ⁴⁵  to Nineveh, that large city, ⁴⁶  and proclaim to ⁴⁷  it the message that I tell you.”

Acts 20:20

20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming ⁴⁸  to you anything that would be helpful, ⁴⁹  and from teaching you publicly ⁵⁰  and from house to house,

Acts 20:27

20:27 For I did not hold back from ⁵¹  announcing ⁵²  to you the whole purpose ⁵³  of God.

[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.

[23:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “And the years of Sarah were one hundred years and twenty years and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah.”

[7:2]  ⁴¹ tn The imperfect tense here should have the nuance of instruction or injunction: “you are to speak.” The subject is singular (Moses) and made emphatic by the presence of the personal pronoun “you.”

[7:2]  ⁴² tn The phrase translated “everything I command you” is a noun clause serving as the direct object of the verb “speak.” The verb in the clause (אֲצַוֶּךָ, ’atsavvekha) is the Piel imperfect. It could be classified as a future: “everything that I will command you.” A nuance of progressive imperfect also fits well: “everything that I am commanding you.”

[7:2]  ⁴³ tn The form is וְשִׁלַּח (vÿshillakh), a Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. Following the imperfects of injunction or instruction, this verb continues the sequence. It could be taken as equal to an imperfect expressing future (“and he will release”) or subordinate to express purpose (“to release” = “in order that he may release”).

[3:11]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “to the sons of your people.”

[3:2]  ⁴⁵ sn The commands of 1:2 are repeated here. See the note there on the combination of “arise” and “go.”

[3:2]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Nineveh, the great city.”

[3:2]  ⁴⁷ tn The verb קָרָא (qara’, “proclaim”) is repeated from 1:2 but with a significant variation. The phrase in 1:2 was the adversative קְרָא עָל (qÿra’ ’al, “proclaim against”), which often designates an announcement of threatened judgment (1 Kgs 13:4, 32; Jer 49:29; Lam 1:15). However, here the phrase is the more positive קְרָא אֶל (qÿra’ ’el, “proclaim to”) which often designates an oracle of deliverance or a call to repentance, with an accompanying offer of deliverance that is either explicit or implied (Deut 20:10; Isa 40:2; Zech 1:4; HALOT 1129 s.v. קרא 8; BDB 895 s.v. קָרָא 3.a). This shift from the adversative preposition עַל (“against”) to the more positive preposition אֶל (“to”) might signal a shift in God’s intentions or perhaps it simply makes his original intention more clear. While God threatened to judge Nineveh, he was very willing to relent and forgive when the people repented from their sins (3:8-10). Jonah later complains that he knew that God was likely to relent from the threatened judgment all along (4:2).

[20:20]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “declaring.”

[20:20]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “profitable.” BDAG 960 s.v. συμφέρω 2.b.α has “τὰ συμφέροντα what advances your best interests or what is good for you Ac 20:20,” but the broader meaning (s.v. 2, “to be advantageous, help, confer a benefit, be profitable/useful”) is equally possible in this context.

[20:20]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “openly.”

[20:27]  ⁵¹ tn Or “did not avoid.” BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 2.b has “shrink from, avoid implying fear…οὐ γὰρ ὑπεστειλάμην τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι I did not shrink from proclaiming Ac 20:27”; L&N 13.160 has “to hold oneself back from doing something, with the implication of some fearful concern – ‘to hold back from, to shrink from, to avoid’…‘for I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God’ Ac 20:27.”

[20:27]  ⁵² tn Or “proclaiming,” “declaring.”

[20:27]  ⁵³ tn Or “plan.”