Genesis 7:16

Summary

The verse states that the animals which entered the ark, one male and one female of every kind of flesh, did so as God had commanded. It closes with the notice that Yehovah shut Noah in behind him.

Key words

• ha-ba'im ("those coming/entering", H0935G) — qal participle, masculine plural with definite article, functioning as a substantive: "the ones who came/were coming," referring back to the animals mentioned in the flow of the narrative.
• ba'u ("they came", H0935G) — qal perfect, third person, marking the completed entry of the animals into the ark; same root as ha-ba'im but in finite perfect form rather than participle.
• tzivvah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third masculine singular; the piel stem here carries the sense of an authoritative directive, completed prior to the main narrated action.
• va-yisgor ("and he closed", H5462) — qal form with narrative vav, third masculine singular, advancing the story sequentially: "and then he closed."
• ba'ado ("behind him", H1157 + H9033) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "his," specifying the position of the closing action relative to the referent (rendered "him" in most translations, referring to Noah).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a resumptive construction: ve-ha-ba'im ("and those coming") followed by the pairing zakhar u-neqevah ("male and female", H2145, H5347), then the phrase mi-kol-basar ("of all flesh", H3605, H1320), and finally the finite verb ba'u ("they came/entered"). This structure places the participial phrase first as a kind of topic ("the ones entering — male and female — they entered"), a construction common in Biblical Hebrew narrative where a fronted element is restated with a finite verb for emphasis or clarity. The clause is then qualified by ka'asher tzivvah oto Elohim ("as Elohim had commanded him"), using the piel perfect tzivvah to indicate that the command preceded the entry described.

The second half of the verse shifts to the narrative vav construction va-yisgor Yehovah ba'ado ("and Yehovah closed behind him"). The preposition ba'ad with the third-person suffix -o ("him") indicates the object of the closing action is a singular masculine referent, consistent with Noah as the implied antecedent, though the Hebrew text does not name him explicitly in this verse — the pronoun stands without a stated noun.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the closing act with an explicit object, τὴν κιβωτὸν ("the ark"), specifying what Yehovah closed, where the Hebrew simply has ba'ado ("behind him") without naming the ark. The LXX also renders Elohim as ὁ θεὸς τῷ Νῶε ("God... to Noah"), inserting Noah's name explicitly, while the Hebrew text uses only the pronominal suffix oto ("him") without naming Noah in this verse. The Vulgate similarly supplies eum ("him") and ei ("to him") without adding the name, closer to the Hebrew's use of unnamed pronouns, but glosses the closing action with deforis ("from outside"), an interpretive addition not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew ba'ado.