Genesis 7:15

Summary

Genesis 7:15 describes the entry of animals into the ark with Noah, stating that they came in pairs — two by two — from every kind of flesh that had the breath of life in it. The verse closes the enumeration of creatures boarding the ark before the flood begins.

Key words

• va-yavo'u ("and they came", H0935G) — qal narrative verb form, third person masculine plural, continuing the sequential storyline with "and then they came."
• tevah ("ark", H8392) — feminine singular noun, the specific structure into which entry is made, marked definite by the article ha (H9009).
• shenayim shenayim ("two, two", H8147) — the cardinal number in dual form repeated, producing a distributive sense ("two by two" / "in pairs") rather than a single count of two.
• basar ("flesh", H1320) — masculine singular noun in construct chain with kol ("all", H3605), forming "all the flesh," a general term for living creatures with bodies.
• ruach chayyim ("breath of life", H7307H + H2416E) — construct phrase pairing a feminine singular noun ruach with a plural noun chayyim, literally "breath of life(s)," describing the life-force within the creatures.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav attached to yavo'u, a standard construction in Biblical Hebrew for advancing sequential action: "and they came." The destination is marked twice with the preposition 'el (H0413): first 'el Noach ("to Noah"), then 'el ha-tevah ("into the ark"), giving the sentence two spatial anchors — the person and the structure — rather than treating them as a single combined destination.

The phrase shenayim shenayim repeats the numeral "two" in immediate succession. This reduplication is a Hebrew idiom for distributive plurality, expressing that entry happened in a pattern of pairs rather than stating a total quantity of two. The scope of these pairs is defined by the following construct chain, mi-kol ha-basar ("from all the flesh"), where kol in construct with basar generalizes the reference to every category of fleshly creature, without specifying species by name in this verse.

The final clause, 'asher bo ruach chayyim ("which in it [was] breath of life"), uses the relative particle 'asher to attach a qualifying condition to "flesh": only those creatures possessing ruach chayyim are included. The preposition bo (H9003 + H9033) — "in it" — locates the breath as residing within the body of the creature, and the construct pairing ruach chayyim treats "breath" and "life" as a bound phrase rather than two separate nouns.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shenayim shenayim as duo arsen kai thēly ("two, male and female"), introducing an explicit male/female distinction not present in the Hebrew reduplicated numeral, which itself only signals "two by two." The Vulgate's bina et bina ("two and two") stays closer to the distributive sense of the Hebrew. The Vulgate and LXX both render ruach chayyim with singular nouns (spiritus vitae, pneuma zōēs, "spirit/breath of life"), matching the Hebrew's singular ruach despite the plural form of chayyim.