All Existence (Gen 7:4)
The Flood
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4 And I will erase all existence (which I made) from the face of the earth.
וּמָחִ֗יתִי אֶֽת־כָּל־הַיְקוּם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשִׂ֔יתִי מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֥י הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃
In 6:7, the text tells us that YHWH thought, Let me erase from the face of the earth the earthy stuff that I created. Now he is announcing to Noah, albeit in slightly different language, that he will do just that: I made it, and I can erase it. In chapter 6, YHWH goes on to enumerate humans … animals … creeping things … [and] the birds in the Sky. Here, instead, we have a remarkable new word: יקום y’qum ‘existence’.
It is not a hapax legomenon, since we’ll see it again in v. 23, when (spoiler warning) all existence will be erased. It also appears once more in the Bible:
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