Knowing The Word in Genesis 7:1-10, Enter the Ark

1 Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me [points back to 6:9] in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive [a remnant] on the face of all the earth. [The purpose of this measure becomes clear after the flood when the birds are let out to reconnoiter the earth and the animals and birds are used for sacrifice.] 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights [a conventional expression for a long time], and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days [God is working in a seven-day cycle] the waters of the flood came upon the earth.