Genesis 6:22

Summary

Genesis 6:22 states that Noah acted according to everything God commanded him, closing the flood-preparation instructions with a statement of complete compliance. The verse frames Noah's action with the same verb at both its beginning and end.

Key words

• va-ya'as ("and he did", H6213A) — qal narrative form (wayyiqtol), opening the verse and marking the main storyline action.
• kol ("all", H3605) — construct with the preposition ke ("according to", H9004), forming ke-khol ("according to all"), setting the scope of Noah's obedience as total.
• tzivvah ("he commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, an intensive stem describing God's prior act of commanding; the perfect aspect marks it as completed before Noah's action.
• ken ("so", H3651C) — adverb linking back to the preceding clause, resuming the idea of correspondence between command and action.
• 'asah ("he did", H6213A) — qal perfect, closing the verse with the same root that opened it, but in a different conjugation (perfect vs. wayyiqtol).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has a circular structure: it begins with va-ya'as Noach ("and Noah did") and ends with ken 'asah ("so he did"), both using the same root H6213A but in different verbal forms — the first a wayyiqtol (narrative past), the second a simple perfect. Between these two occurrences sits the relative clause ka-khol 'asher tzivvah oto Elohim ("according to all that God commanded him"), which specifies the content of what was done. This repetition of the verb "to do" at the start and end of the verse creates a frame around the reference to the divine command, so that the object of Noah's action (the command) is enclosed by the statement of compliance itself.

The direct object marker 'oto (H0853+H9033, "him") attaches to tzivvah, clarifying that Noah, not something else, is the recipient of God's command. The noun Elohim (H0430G) appears in the plural form here, functioning as the subject of tzivvah, consistent with its grammatical (not necessarily numerical) plural pattern in Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Elohim as κύριος ὁ θεός ("Lord God"), adding the divine name κύριος not present in the Hebrew, which has only Elohim. The Vulgate ("Fecit igitur Noë omnia quæ præceperat illi Deus") uses a single verb, fecit, and does not reproduce the Hebrew's double occurrence of the verb "to do" (ya'as... 'asah) that frames the verse; the repeated structure is condensed into one clause without a closing echo of the opening verb.