Genesis 6:21

Summary

God instructs Noah to take for himself every kind of food that is eaten, gather it to himself, and it will serve as food for him and for "them" — referring back to the animals mentioned in the preceding verses. The verse uses emphatic phrasing and a chain of sequential verb forms to mark this as a direct command with ongoing consequences.

Key words

• 'a.Tah ("you", H0859A) — an independent personal pronoun placed before the imperative, giving emphasis: "as for you..."
• qach ("take", H3947G) — qal imperative, a direct command addressed to Noah.
• yе'aKhel ("it is eaten", H0398) — niphal (passive) imperfect; the subject (food) receives the action rather than performing it, with no agent specified.
• 'asafTa ("you will gather", H0622) — qal sequential perfect; this form continues the force of the initial imperative, functioning as a further instruction rather than a separate statement.
• 'okhLah ("food", H0402) — feminine singular noun marking the final purpose of the gathered items.

What the text says

The verse opens with the independent pronoun 'a.Tah ("you") immediately before the imperative qach ("take"), a construction that places emphasis on Noah as the one responsible for this action, distinguishing his task from what was said in the preceding verses about the animals. The object of qach is introduced by mi-kol-ma'akhal ("some of all food"), further specified by the relative clause 'asher ye'aKhel — "which is eaten." The verb here is niphal, meaning the food is described from the standpoint of being eaten, without naming who eats it; the Hebrew leaves this general.

The verse then moves into two verbs in the sequential perfect (wə-'asafTa, "and you will gather"; wə-hayah, "and it will become"). This verb form in Biblical Hebrew narrative continues the imperative chain begun by qach, so grammatically the sentence reads as one continuous set of instructions: take → gather → it will become. The final clause states the food "will become" (hayah) for Noah (lekha) and for "them" (lahem), with the purpose marked by the preposition le- before 'okhlah ("for food"). The referent of "them" is not restated within this verse itself but depends on the surrounding context.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew niphal ye'aKhel ("which is eaten," impersonal) is rendered in the LXX as ἃ ἔδεσθε ("which you [plural] will eat"), shifting from a passive, unspecified construction to an active second-person plural form. The Vulgate's quæ mandi possunt ("which can be eaten") introduces a modal nuance of possibility not present in the Hebrew niphal. The BSB explicitly translates lahem ("for them," H9038) as "for the animals," supplying a referent that the Hebrew text itself leaves as a bare pronoun.