Genesis 7:2 Commentary and Bible Study

But then we read the instructions, which have been indicated before. And immediately those who are cynical about the Bible seem to smell a contradiction in the record. Verse 2 of chapter 7 – ‘Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens’, whereas previously, it was two of each, male and female. But there is no contradiction; this is just more information now. There is a distinction between clean animals and unclean animals. We are surprised to see that because all the information distinguishing between clean animals and unclean animals comes with the laws of Moses, with revelation of the law on Sinai and subsequently. But evidently, God had revealed it to these generations much earlier on. That is not mentioned in the Bible, but here it is. Clearly, they had already been instructed, through one of the pre-flood patriarchs no doubt, about the difference between clean and unclean animals, because there were already sacrifices, and they required clean animals.And maybe – this is highly debatable – they were already eating meats. The permission to eat meat is given in Genesis 9 – it has not been given until they come out of the ark – but that sanction may have been to ratify something that had already taking place, because the difference between clean and unclean animals suggests not only that they had instructions about how to correctly make sacrifices of thanksgiving to God, but also for the purposes of what to eat and what not to eat. Generally, we seem to think that the eating of meat does not start until after the flood, but it may have started earlier because there are these distinctions.They are to take seven of the clean beasts – why seven? That is very difficult to figure out, and there are a thousand answers given. All we are told here are the statistics. We are not told why. And whether there was a pair for each of the families of the sons and one for sacrifice, or whether there was adequate provision for sacrifices, we do not know. But here is this extra information which does not appear in the previous chapters.