THE decisive moment and a fresh message now arrived.
“And Jehovah said to Noah, Go (or Come) into the ark, thou and all thy house; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take [by] sevens, a male and its female, but of the beasts that [are] not clean two, a male and its female; also of birds of the heavens [by] sevens, male and female: to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth. For yet seven days and I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and all the living substance that I have made will I destroy (blot out) from off the face of the ground. And Noah did according to all that Jehovah commanded him.”
“And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was on the earth. And Noah went in and his sons, and his wife and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because (from the face) of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that [are] not clean, and of birds, and everything that creeps on the ground, went in two [and] two to Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth” (vers. 1-10).
A good deal is sometimes made of the word “Come” in the A. V. of ver. 1. This is really beside the mark. The verb may be either, as best suits the context, which is often as here a delicate question if made one. When it means entering where the speaker is, “come” is the more correct in the usage of our tongue; where no emphasis of this kind calls for it, either may be used correctly, as for instance here. Accordingly they are both used freely in translating this and other Biblical Hebrew words into English; and so any special force appears to be inadmissible, except in circumstances which hardly apply to the present case.
Yet we cannot but own the mercy shown to Noah, and for his sake where there could be no personal ground of commendation. All his house benefited by its head. “And Jehovah said to Noah, Go into the ark, thou and all thy house; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.” It was not a small thing to say “righteous before Jehovah,” and especially “in this generation,” so reprobate as it was already, and so pronounced by Him.
The propriety of the change from Elohim (God) as in the latter half of chap. vi., to Jehovah (the Lout)) here is strikingly and beyond all just doubt confirmed by internal considerations. It is no longer the faithful Creator merely, but special relationship, and ends of a higher and more intimate nature. Hence we have a quite new call to the patriarch as one who had found grace in the eyes of Jehovah and was righteous before Him. “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven, seven, a male and its female, and of the beasts that [are] not clean two, a male and its female; also of birds of the heavens seven, seven: to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth.”
Here the distinction, afterward minutely expounded under the law, first appears, where the special name of Israel's God is introduced: a distinction thus early enforced in the preservation of animals, where the claim of sacrifice was met and the need of suitable food foreshadowed. For only after the deluge was man allowed to eat of flesh without blood (chap. 9.). How exactly this falls in with “Jehovah” speaking requires no argument; not with the shallow and unintelligent supposition of different authors or legends, which explains nothing but only confuses, but with due reverence to scripture and resulting instruction and living interest.
Next, we have Jehovah's considerate care in the notice given of but seven days before the flood, that Noah and his family might the more calmly enjoy their deliverance and the goodness of their Deliverer. The world of unbelievers had refused the warning that sounded through one hundred and twenty years; the seven days' notice was a fresh proof of gracious concern in those that believed. “For in yet seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; all the living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground. And Noah did according to all that Jehovah commanded him.” “Forty” appears to be the number of trial or endurance put to the test; as in Moses, Israel, Elijah, Jonah, and Ezekiel (for Judah): so in the legal strokes inflicted on an evildoer, with the limit not to exceed; and so here and such in the Temptation.
The special force of these five verses is the more confirmed by the general statement which follows in vers. 6-10, where “God” appears rather than Jehovah, and consequently nothing of moral relationship in particular. Here we have Noah's age when the flood came—six hundred years; and that the entrance of himself and all his house into the ark (vers. 6, 7). And this is so true that, though birds, and reptiles, as also going in, but two and two male and female are spoken of “as, God commanded Noah” (vers. 8, 9), because it is simply in view of perpetuating the race, high or low. “And it came to pass after the seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth” (ver. 10). He who enjoyed the favor of Jehovah had the previous communication in grace; none could be unconscious of God's judgment when it came.