translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: GEN

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “for you I see [as] godly before me in this generation.” The direct object (“you”) is placed first in the clause to give it prominence. The verb “to see” here signifies God’s evaluative discernment.


text: Or “seven pairs” (cf. NRSV).


text: Heb “a male and his female” (also a second time at the end of this verse). The terms used here for male and female animals ( אִישׁ , ’ ish ) and אִשָּׁה , ’ ishah ) normally refer to humans.


text: Here (and in v. 9 ) the Hebrew text uses the normal generic terms for “male and female” ( זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה , zakhar unÿqevah ).


text: Heb “to keep alive offspring.”


text: Heb “for seven days yet,” meaning “after [or “in”] seven days.”


text: The Hiphil participle מַמְטִיר ( mamtir , “cause to rain”) here expresses the certainty of the act in the imminent future.


text: Heb “according to all.”


text: Heb “Now Noah was.” The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + predicate nominative after implied “to be” verb) provides background information. The age of Noah receives prominence.


text: Heb “and the flood was water upon.” The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) is circumstantial/temporal in relation to the preceding clause. The verb הָיָה ( hayah ) here carries the nuance “to come” (BDB 225 s.v. הָיָה ). In this context the phrase “come upon” means “to engulf.”


text: The preposition מִן ( min ) is causal here, explaining why Noah and his family entered the ark.


text: Heb “two two” meaning “in twos.”


text: The Hebrew text of vv. 8-9 a reads, “From the clean animal[s] and from the animal[s] which are not clean and from the bird[s] and everything that creeps on the ground, two two they came to Noah to the ark, male and female.”


text: Heb “Noah”; the pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.


text: Heb “came upon.”


text: The Hebrew term תְּהוֹם ( tÿhom , “deep”) refers to the watery deep, the salty ocean – especially the primeval ocean that surrounds and underlies the earth (see Gen 1:2 ). sn The watery deep . The same Hebrew term used to describe the watery deep in Gen 1:2 ( תְּהוֹם , tihom ) appears here. The text seems to picture here subterranean waters coming from under the earth and contributing to the rapid rise of water. The significance seems to be, among other things, that in this judgment God was returning the world to its earlier condition of being enveloped with water – a judgment involving the reversal of creation. On Gen 7:11 see G. F. Hasel, “The Fountains of the Great Deep,” Origins 1 (1974): 67-72; idem, “The Biblical View of the Extent of the Flood,” Origins 2 (1975): 77-95.


text: Heb “was.”


text: Heb “On that very day Noah entered, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and the wife of Noah, and the three wives of his sons with him into the ark.”


text: The verb “entered” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.


text: Heb “every bird, every wing.”


text: Heb “flesh.”


text: Heb “Those that went in, male and female from all flesh they went in.”


text: Heb “and the waters were great and multiplied exceedingly.” The first verb in the sequence is וַיִּגְבְּרוּ ( vayyigbÿru , from גָּבַר , gavar ), meaning “to become great, mighty.” The waters did not merely rise; they “prevailed” over the earth, overwhelming it.


text: Heb “went.”


text: Heb “and the waters were great exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition emphasizes the depth of the waters.


text: Heb “and.”


text: Heb “rose fifteen cubits.” Since a cubit is considered by most authorities to be about eighteen inches, this would make the depth 22.5 feet. This figure might give the modern reader a false impression of exactness, however, so in the translation the phrase “fifteen cubits” has been rendered “more than twenty feet.”


text: Heb “the waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward and they covered the mountains.” Obviously, a flood of twenty feet did not cover the mountains; the statement must mean the flood rose about twenty feet above the highest mountain.


text: Heb “everything which [has] the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils from all which is in the dry land.”


text: Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: Heb “wiped away” (cf. NRSV “blotted out”).


text: Heb “from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky.”


text: The Hebrew verb שָׁאָר ( sha ’ ar ) means “to be left over; to survive” in the Niphal verb stem. It is the word used in later biblical texts for the remnant that escapes judgment. See G. F. Hasel, “Semantic Values of Derivatives of the Hebrew Root só ’ r ,” AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.