The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 191

C'.IAPTER VII. several centuries later (Kalisch). • That this distinction was founded on nature; " every Ver. 1.-And the Lord. JelUJvah, siuce tribe of mankind being able to distinguish Elohim now appears as the covenant God, between the sheep and the hyena, the dove though this change in the Divine name is and the vulture" (' Speaker's Commentary'), commonly regarded by modern critics as be- or " on an immediate conscious feeling of tmying the hand of a Jchovist supplementcr the human spirit, uot yet clouded by any of the fundamental document of the Elohist ungodly and unnaturnl culture, which ·leads (Dleck, Vaihingcr, Davidson, rwisch, Co- it to see in many beasts pictures of sin and lcuso, Alford) ; but "that the va.riatious in corruption" (Keil), has ·been supposed·; but the name of God furnish no criterion by with greater probability it was of Divine which to detect different documents is evi- institution, with reference to the necessities dent enough from the fact that in ver. 5 of sacrifice (Ainsworth, Bush, Wordsworth; Noa.h does as Jehovah commands him, while cf. eh. viii. 20). To this _was appended iu in ver. 16 Elohim alternates with Jehovah" the Levitical system a distinction between (Keil). Said unto Noah. At the end of clean and unclean in respect of man's food the 120 years, when the building of the ark (Levit. x:i. 3). Sha.It thou. take-inconsist- bad been completed, and only seven days ent with eh. vi. 20, which says the animals before the Flood-doubtless by an audible were to come to Noah (Colenso); but eh. voice still speaking to him from between vi 19, which eays that Noah was to ·bring the cherubim, which we can suppose had them, i. e. make them go (at least nearl,>' 110t yet vanished from the earth. Come equivalent to take), clearly recognises Noah s thon and all thy honse into the ark. I. e. agency (Quarry)-to thee by sevens. Liter- prepare for entering; the actual entry taking ally, seven, seven; either seven pafrs (Vul- place seven days later. So God ever hides gate, LXX., Aben Ezra, Clcricus, Mich11olis, his _people before the storm bursts (cf. Isa. De Wette, Knobel, Kalisch, 111urphy, .Alford, Xl-"TL 20). For thee have I seen righteous Wordsworth, 'Speaker's Commentary'), or (vide eh. vi 9) before me. Literally, before seven individuals (Chrysostom, Augustine, my face; not merely notifying the Divine Tbeodoret, Calvin, Pererius, Willet, De- observance of Noah's piety, bnt announcing litzscb, Rosenmiiller, Keil, Lange, Bush) ; the fact of his justification in God's sight. both partfos quoting the next clause 'in_ "To be righteous before God," the nsual support of their particular interpretation. ScriP.tura.l phrw;e for justification (cf. Ps. Davidson, Colenso, and Kalisch challenge cxliii 2). In this generation. Vide eh. both interpretations as "irreconcilable with vi. 9. Indicating not aloue the sphere of the preceding narrative" (eh, vi. 19) ; but Noah's godly life, but its exceptional cha- the obvious answer is, that while in the first racter; "involving an opposing sentence of communication, which was given 120 yeo.1·s condemnation against his contemporaries" before, when minute instructions were not (Lange). • required, it is simply stated that the animals Ver. 2.-0f every clean beast. That the should be preserved by pairs ; in tho second, distinction between clean and unclean ani- when the ark was finianed and the animals mals was at this time understood is easier to were about to be collected, it is 11dded tho.t, believe than that the writer would perpetrate in the case of t'.ae few clean beasts used for the glaring ana.chronism of iutroduci.11g in sacrifice, an exception should be mode to tl10 pr,xliluvian_ times what only took its rise general rule, and not ono pair, but either UH. VII. 1-10.] TH~ BOOK OF GENESIS. 115