Genesis 7:9

Summary

Genesis 7:9 describes animals entering the ark in pairs together with Noah, specified as one male and one female each, in accordance with a divine command previously given to Noah. The verse closes the enumeration of animals boarding the ark before the flood narrative continues.

Key words

• she.Na.yim ("two", H8147) — repeated twice in immediate succession (word 1 and word 2), a doubling that expresses distributive sense ("two by two"), not two separate groups of two.
• Ba.'u ("they came", H0935G) — qal perfect, third person plural; marks a completed action, the entering as an accomplished fact from the narrator's viewpoint.
• te.Vah ("ark", H8392) — feminine singular noun with definite article (ha, H9009), the specific vessel already introduced earlier in the narrative.
• tzi.Vah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the verb, here conveying a formal or authoritative command rather than a casual instruction.
• 'a.Sher ("as/that", H0834D) with prefixed ka. ("just/like", H9004) — forms the comparative clause "just as," linking the action performed to the prior command as its exact fulfillment.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the doubled numeral she.Na.yim she.Na.yim (H8147 + H8147), a grammatical construction in which repetition of the cardinal number conveys distribution — "two by two" — rather than requiring a separate word for "each" or "by." This repetition itself carries the sense that later translations render with phrases like "two by two" or "pairs."

The verb Ba.'u (H0935G), qal perfect plural, has as its subject the unstated animals (understood from the wider context, not overtly named in this verse) and is followed by two prepositional phrases using 'el (H0413, "to/into"): first "to Noah," then "into the ark." This double destination marks the completion of the movement in two stages — reaching Noah, then entering the ark — though both are governed by the same verb.

The pair za.Khar ("male", H2145) and ne.ke.Vah ("female", H5347), both singular adjectives joined by the conjunction u. (H9002, "and"), specify the composition of each pair without repeating "two," since the distribution was already established by the doubled numeral earlier in the verse.

The final clause uses ka.'a.Sher (H9004 + H0834D, "just as") to introduce a comparison, followed by tzi.Vah (H6680), piel perfect, whose subject is 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G, grammatically plural but referring to a singular subject here). The direct object marker 'et (H0853) before No.ach (H5146) is a grammatical particle with no independent gloss, marking Noah as the recipient of the command.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text uses 'E.lo.Him (H0430G, "God") as the subject of the command; the LXX renders this with ho theos ("the God"), matching the Hebrew term. The Vulgate, however, renders this same subject as Dominus ("Lord") rather than Deus ("God"), diverging from both the Hebrew and the Greek in its choice of divine title at this point.