Noah and His Family Enter the Ark (Genesis 7:5-10)
This section is a real problem for those who seek to split up the narrative. In order to fit the theory it has to be split up into minute bits chosen quite arbitrarily to fit the theory. Yet in reality the section sits well together as a unity, incorporating in one whole many of the features that are supposed to identify the differing documents.
‘And Noah did all that Yahweh had commanded him'.
This comment finalises the last section and introduces this one. Once again Noah's obedience is highlighted, contrasting him with the corruption among the remainder of mankind. In Genesis 7:1-4 Yahweh has given His instructions, now in Genesis 7:5-9 we have Noah's obedience in the fulfilling of those instructions.
‘And Noah was six hundred years old when the cataclysm of waters was upon the earth.'
C. H. Gordon has shown that the appearance of such genealogical details in a story narrative are a feature of ancient records. The number six (hundred) which is three plus three may suggest that God in His goodness had allowed two complete periods to pass rather than one before allowing judgment to come.
‘And Noah went in with his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him into the ark because of the waters of the cataclysm.'
There is as yet no rain, but in full obedience Noah and his sons carry out the task of entering the ark, a process which clearly took seven days with all the creatures to get aboard, and they take their wives with them. This links the sons in obedience with their father. It was as well they obeyed promptly. Although they were not to know it there would be more than rain in the cataclysm to come.
Notice the change of emphasis as regards the Flood. In Genesis 6:17 and Genesis 7:6 (‘cataclysm of waters') the emphasis is on the cataclysm, God's judgment, which is by water, which will destroy the earth. Here and in Genesis 7:10 (‘waters of the cataclysm') the emphasis is on Noah and his sons being saved from the waters of the cataclysm. They will endure the cataclysm but will be saved from the waters.
‘Of clean animals and unclean animals, of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground, there went in two and two to Noah into the ark, male and female as God (Elohim) commanded Noah.'
The emphasis here is on the fact that the creatures were in pairs, both male and female, whether pairs of two or pairs of sevens, to stress God's determination to repopulate the earth. Previously it had been ‘two of every sort', compared with ‘two and two' here. Elohim is used in order to refer the reader back to God's command in Genesis 6:19 with Genesis 7:22. (Note however that it was as Yahweh that God referred to the distinction between clean and unclean (Genesis 7:2) - thus both names are in use by the one writer).
‘And after the seven days the waters of the cataclysmic flood were upon the earth.'
As God had declared, so it was. Once His time was fully completed, the waters of judgment came. ‘After the seven days' refers back to Genesis 7:4.