Of every beast two, or of clean beasts seven?
The first command was of pairs of every kind; the later one added more pairs of the clean.
The Passages
Genesis 6:19-20
Genesis 7:2-3
See Also
Genesis 7:8-9
The Difficulty
When God first told Noah to build the ark, He said, “of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark” (Genesis 6:19). Later He said, “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two” (Genesis 7:2). Then “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark” (7:9).
The Answer
The first command, given with the plan of the ark, sets the rule: of every kind a pair, male and female, “to keep them alive” (Genesis 6:19–20). The second, given seven days before the flood (7:4), adds to it: of the clean beasts, not one pair only but sevens, “the male and his female.” Haley takes the second as an amplification of the first. The clean beasts were needed beyond the rest; Noah offered “of every clean beast” when he came out (8:20).
“Two and two” (Genesis 7:9) tells how they went in, by pairs, male and female, whether one pair of a kind or seven (Abarbanel, cited by Haley).
Sources
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The second injunction may be simply an amplification of the former given some hundred and twenty years previously. At first, it was said that a pair of every kind of beasts should be preserved; afterwards, that, in the case of the few clean beasts, there should be preserved not one pair only, but seven pairs. Abarbanel takes the first passage as simply asserting that the beasts should come paired, male and female; the second as specifying the number of the pairs, — seven of the clean, two of the unclean, animals.
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the 1874 edition, 2026-10-28
