Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female. I.e. of clean fowls, "which he leaves to be understood out of the foregoing verse" (Poole). The Samaritan, Syriac, and LXX. (not so Vulgate, Onkelos, Arabic) insert the word "clean unnecessarily, and also add," και Ì ἀ πο Ì πα ì ντων τῶ ν πετεινῶ ν τῶ νν μη Ì καθαρῶ ν δυ ì ο δυ ì ο ἀ ì ρσεν και Ì θῆ λυ," manifestly to make the verse resemble the preceding. To keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
For yet seven days. Literally, for today's yet seven—after seven days; thus giving Noah time to complete his preparations, and the world one more opportunity to repent, which Poole thinks many may have done, though their bodies were drowned for their former impenitency. And I will cause it to rain—literally, I causing it, the participle indicating the certainty of the future action—upon the earth forty days and forty nights. The importance assigned in subsequent Scripture to the number forty, probably from the circumstance here recorded, is too obvious to be overlooked. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33). The scouts remained forty days in Canaan (Numbers 13:26). Moses was forty days in the mount (Exodus 24:18). Elijah fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness of Beersheba (1 Kings 19:8). A respite of forty days was given to the Ninevites (Jonah 3:4). Christ fasted forty days before the temptation (Matthew 4:2), and sojourned forty, days on earth after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). It thus appears to have been regarded as symbolical of a period of trial, ending in victory to the good and in ruin to the evil. And every living substance—yekum; literally, standing thing, omne quod subsistit, i.e. "whatever is capable by a principle of life of maintaining an erect posture" (Bush); ἀ ναì στημα (LXX.; cf. Deuteronomy 11:6; Job 22:20)—that I have made will I destroy—literally, blot out (cf. Genesis 6:7)—from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all that the Lord (Jehovah, the God of salvation, who now interposed for the patriarch's safety; in Genesis 6:22, where God is exhibited in his relations to all flesh, it is Elohim) had commanded him.