Closing Time (Gen 7:16)

The Flood

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¹⁶ Those that came: a male and a female of all animal life came.

וְהַבָּאִ֗ים זָכָ֨ר וּנְקֵבָ֤ה מִכָּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֔אוּ

We are seeing the phrase כל בשר kol baśar ‘all flesh’ for the fifth time now, and “male and female” for the sixth — and last! — time in the Bible. Is this a summary phrase? That’s how NJPS takes it:

Thus they that entered comprised male and female of all flesh.

This is a plausible interpretation of the words, but it conceals the fact that our phrase begins and ends with the verb בוא bo ‘come, enter’. Abraham ibn Ezra (in my Commentators’ Bible translation) doesn’t mind that:

The verb is the same used in v. 15 (compare OJPS). But it means something different in each verse, as NJPS correctly observes.

Ibn Ezra, a fine poet in his own right, doesn’t hear poetry in this kind of biblical writing. In my own case, I have found classical music a surprisingly useful model for helping me understand the composition of some biblical texts. (Admittedly I know just enough about classical music to be dangerous.) What I’m thinking here is that the repetition is telling us we are about to reach the end of Episode 1 of the Flood.

as God had commanded him. כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה אֹת֖וֹ אֱלֹהִ֑ים

Let’s compare vv. 15–16 with v. 9. This time, I’ll use the Everett Fox translation (watch an interview with him here), which deliberately mimics the Hebrew:

⁹ two and two [each] came to Noah, into the ark, male and female,

as God had commanded Noah.

…

¹⁵ they came to Noah, into the ark, two and two [each] from all flesh in which there is the rush of life.

¹⁶ And those that came, male and female from all flesh they came,

as God had commanded him.

You see that each phrase in v. 8 is repeated in vv. 15–16, and the verb “come” shows up no less than three times. This is not a summary so much as it is a coda. And now, the closing chord:

Then YHWH closed it/him up. וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר יְ׳הוָ֖ה בַּֽעֲדֽוֹ׃

For 10 points and the new refrigerator, what did YHWH close?