1 And God said to him: go in, and all your household, into the ark; truly I saw you as just before me in this generation. 2 Out of all living things in the world take seven and seven at a time, male and female; truly, from the impure living things two and two, male and female. 3 But also from the flying things of heaven seven and seven at a time, male and female, so that the offspring may be saved over the face of all the land. 4 Moreover indeed, and after seven days, I will rain over the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will put an end to all substance, which I have made, from the surface of the earth.
5 Consequently Noë did everything that the Lord command him 6 and he was six-hundred years old when the deluges of water overflowed the earth.
7 And Noë and his sons , his wife and his sons’ wives with him, entered into the ark because of the waters of the flood. 8 Also from the clean and unclean living things, and from the flying things, and out of all that moved over the earth 9 two by two they entered close by Noë into the ark, male and female, as the Lord instructed Noë.
10 And when seven days had passed, the waters of the flood had flooded over the earth.
11 In the six-hundredth year of Noë’s life, in the second month on the seventeenth day of the month, all the great springs of the abyss were broken and the gates of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was made over the earth for forty days and forty nights. 13 In the moment of that day, Noë, and Sem, and Cham, and Japheth, his sons; his wife and the three of wives of his sons, with him, entered into the ark. 14 They and every animal according to its type, and all beasts of burden in their kind and any thing which moved on earth in its kind, and every flying creature according to its kind, all birds and all flying things.
15 They went into the ark to Noë out of all flesh, in which there was the spirit of life. 16 And they went in, male and female from all flesh they went in, just as God commanded them; and God shut him up from the wild beasts.
17 And the flood was made forty days over the earth; and the waters were multiplied and rose the ark in the height by earth. 18 Indeed they violently inundated, and all things on the surface of the earth filled up; the ark was further carried on the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed excessively over the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole sky were covered. 20 The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains it covered. 21 And all flesh which moved over the earth, of birds, of living things, of beasts, and all creeping things which crawl over the earth, was consumed; all men 22 and all, in which the breath of life is on earth, were dead.
23 And He destroyed all material, which was on the earth, from man up to beast, crawling things up to the birds of the sky, were destroyed from the earth; whereas only Noë and those who were with him in the ark remained. 24 The waters occupied the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
Linguistic notes
My first linguistic challenge in this chapter came from 7:10 where I puzzled over Cumque transissent septem dies (“and when seven days had passed”). Transissent is subjunctive which didn’t seem to make sense to me. Consulting with the remarkably helpful latin.stackexchange, I learned:
In historical narration, if an indicative follows after cum, the subordinate clause specifies the time of the events in the main clause, with there being no further relationship between the events in both clauses. A subjunctive on the other hand should follow when the events in the subordinate clause somehow affect or at least form the circumstances of the events in the main clause.
I also got tripped up a bit in 7:23 where the Latin is usque ad pecus for “up to beast.” I puzzled over this trying to make sense of pecus thinking that it was either a feminine nominative or a genitive, neither of which belong after the preposition ad. It turns out I was too quick when looking at Wiktionary and I managed to see pecus/pecudis but not the neuter pecus/pecoris which has the accusative of pecus (and yet somehow I found the more obscure pecu/pecus). When I went to check again today, I saw that pecus/pecoris is even the first entry under pecus. I’m not a very good classicist.
Theological notes
The destruction of the world with the flood is one of those challenging bits of scripture. Alexander Waugh described the God of Genesis as a “mewling and puking” baby, prone to temper tantrums like any small child. Certainly, this is an easy to criticize decision, but at the same time, there is the preservation of some small remnant inherent in God’s decision to have Noah build the ark and take into it a representative sample of the fauna of the earth (the numbers varying depending on which narrative strain is appearing in the text—my first real read of Genesis was via The New Jerusalem Bible which emphasized the JEPD source theory of the Pentateuch making explicit which source was likely responsible for which passage). Surely more than 2–7 of each type of animal deserved to survive the flood, but the fact that at least this many did is a sign of divine mercy.
One of the inevitable side-effects of a project like this in which every word of scripture passes (literally) through my hands multiple times (I first copy the Latin text longhand into a notebook leaving space for an interlinear translation, then write the translation, then type the edited translation on my computer for posting to the blog) is that I notice things that escaped my attention on previous reads. In this case, it’s the fact that God shut up Noë from the wild beasts. I picture Noë and his family cowering in a portion of the ark while the lions and other predators claw at the door looking for food.