Genesis 7:14

Summary

Genesis 7:14 lists the categories of living creatures that entered the ark together with Noah, specifying that each group came "according to its kind." The verse enumerates wild animals, livestock, creeping things, and birds, closing with an emphatic doubling on flying creatures.

Key words

• chai.Yah ("animal", H2416C) — feminine singular noun with the definite article ha ("the"), designating wild or living animals as a category distinct from domesticated stock.
• mi.Na ("kind", H4327) — masculine singular construct noun appearing four times in the verse (vv. 7, 14, 26, 33), each time bound to a pronominal suffix (-hah, "its", H9024, or -hu, "its", H9023) referring back to the preceding animal category.
• ro.Mes ("creeps", H7430) — Qal participle masculine singular, functioning as a verbal adjective modifying Re.mes ("creeping thing", H7431); the participle form indicates ongoing action, "the one that creeps/moves."
• tzi.Por ("bird", H6833) — common gender singular construct noun, introducing a second, more specific term for birds after the general term 'of ("bird", H5775) already used earlier in the verse.
• ka.Naf ("wing", H3671) — feminine singular noun in construct chain kol-ka.Naf ("every wing"), used here to broaden the bird category to "every winged thing."

What the text says

The verse opens with the pronoun He.mah ("they", H1992), resuming the subject of Noah's household from the preceding verses, then attaches a series of coordinated noun phrases with ve-khol ("and every/all", H9002+H3605) — a construct pattern meaning "all of X." Each animal category (chai.Yah, be.he.Mah, Re.mes, 'of) is followed by the phrase le-mi.Na/mi.Ne + suffix, literally "to its kind," a formula repeated four times that marks classification by species or type for each group separately.

The creeping-thing clause adds a relative-participial construction: ha-Re.mes ha-ro.Mes 'al ha-'A.retz ("the creeping thing, the one creeping on the earth"), where the article-plus-participle functions as a relative clause defining Re.mes through its characteristic action of movement on the ground.

The final clause departs from the four-part le-mina pattern: instead of a fifth "according to its kind," the Hebrew adds kol tzi.Por kol-ka.Naf ("every bird, every wing"), a construct chain without the mina suffix formula, intensifying the bird/flying-creature category with two additional terms rather than repeating the classification phrase.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the sequence with κατὰ γένος ("according to kind") after each category, matching the Hebrew le-mina pattern, but for the final phrase it reads only πᾶν πετεινὸν κατὰ γένος ("every bird according to kind"), omitting a separate rendering for tzi.Por ("bird") and ka.Naf ("wing") as distinct terms. The Vulgate similarly expands the last clause into "universæ aves, omnesque volucres" ("all birds, and all flying things"), preserving two terms for the final category, closer to the Hebrew's double phrase kol tzi.Por kol-ka.Naf, though without the "kind" formula there.