In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth. According to Oriental usage, the men are mentioned first in all passages relating to the persons saved in the ark (cf. Genesis 6:18; Genesis 8:18), except in Genesis 8:16. "Entered" х baa' (H935)], pluperfect, 'had come,' not came into the ark. The idea is not that Noah, with his family, and all the animals, entered the ark on the very day on which the rain began, but that on that day he had entered-had completed the entering, which occupied the seven days between the giving of the command (Genesis 7:4) and the commencement of the flood (Genesis 7:10) (Delitzsch).