Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Genesis 7:1-5
The Day Arrives (Genesis 7:1)
‘And Yahweh said to Noah, “Come, both you and all your household into the ark, for I have seen you as righteous before me in this generation”.'
We now see a reversion from Elohim to Yahweh because God is now dealing with Noah personally as one who is within His covenant and not primarily as Judge and Creator. The long period of activity required in Genesis 6:22 is over and the time has come for them to take refuge in the ark. Again the reason is stressed, it is because Noah is the only one of his generation to be acceptable to God through his faithfulness and his faith in God.
Now Yahweh gives more detailed instructions. In the previous verses He had stated that two of every kind of creature must enter the ark, so that their kinds might be preserved, for He was speaking as Elohim, the Creator, now He deals with the more practical element that it is necessary for more to be preserved of the ‘clean' animals, and also of the ‘clean' birds, which are both suitable for food and sacrificial offerings, for He is speaking as Yahweh, the covenant God, ensuring the maintenance of worship and the preservation of His people. This was clearly necessary or else the family would be unable to offer sacrifices to God until there had been time for the clean animals and birds to breed sufficiently, nor would they have sufficient milk and food. Genesis 7:3 almost certainly refers to clean birds rather than all birds, being a parallel with Genesis 7:2 in abbreviated form.
“You shall take seven and seven of every clean animal, male and female, and two of the animals that are not clean, male and female. Of the birds of the air also, seven and seven, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the earth.”
It is not certain whether seven and seven means ‘seven pairs' or seven of each kind, although Genesis 7:7 suggests the former, but either way provision is made for sacrificial offerings and later possibly for food. Already it is clear that there are distinct types of animals and birds considered suitable for sacrifice and for eating.
Such distinctions would in fact be necessary from the beginnings of the cult, unless it was accepted that anything could be offered, so that this is not an indication of late authorship. Views on sacrifice were complicated and widespread from the earliest times. This instruction on clean animals and birds could be given at the last moment as they would be to hand. How the numbers were originally indicated we do not know. Possibly by a hand of fingers plus two extra which may have had a name for it (as we say ‘twelve' - ‘two eleph' = 2 extra on top of ten - see article, " ").
“For there are only seven more days, and then I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”
The number of days given for getting all the living creatures aboard is seven, the number of divine perfection, God's perfect time. The world began in seven ‘days', now preparations for its decease will also take ‘seven days'.
The ‘seven days' may be literal, or they may indicate a God-given length of time, while not tying Noah down too strictly (compare the ‘seven-day journey' which appears regularly in Genesis). As with Cain, so now the world are to be driven from the ‘face of the ground', but this time with more finality, for they will be ‘blotted out'. The seven days was needed in order to get all the living things into the ark in readiness for the Flood, and it would seem to have taken up the whole time, for once they were in ‘on that very day' the Flood came (Genesis 7:11).
“Forty days and forty nights” will later be significant as a period when men of God wait on God at special moments in history (Moses - Exodus 24:18; Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18; Elijah - 1 Kings 19:8; and Jesus Himself - Matthew 4:2 and parallels). Perhaps that idea looks back to this time. The mention of both days and nights shows the intensity of the experience. It is unceasing. ‘Forty days' had probably already begun to mean an unspecified period of a little over a month, as it certainly would later as a period of waiting for judgment (Ezekiel 4:6; Jonah 3:4) or as a more general period of waiting (Numbers 13:25; 1 Samuel 17:16 - both significant periods of waiting for Israel). So what God is saying here (and what He probably originally said before it was translated into numbers) is that it will rain for over a moon period of days and nights. But the mention of nights stresses the continuity of it.
“I will cause it to rain -- I will blot out”. In Genesis 2:5 when God was mentioned as ‘causing it to rain' on the earth it was, by inference, to bring for man the means of survival. Now God will cause it to rain to bring judgment on man. Previously it had brought life. Now it will bring death.