Genesis 9:10 - Exposition

And with every living creature —literally, every soul (or breathing thing) that liveth, a generic designation of which the particulars are now specified— that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth —literally, in fowl, &c.; i.e. belonging to these classes of animals (cf. Genesis 1:25 , Genesis 1:30 ; Genesis 6:20 ; Genesis 8:17 ) with you; from all that go out of the ark ,—not necessarily implying ('Speaker's Commentary,' Murphy), though in all probability it was the case, that there were animals which had never been in the ark; but simply an idiomatic phrase expressive of the totality of the animal creation (Alford)— to every beast of the earth. I .e. wild beast ( Genesis 1:25 ), the chayyah of the land, which was not included among the animals that entered the ark (Murphy); or living creature ( Genesis 2:19 ), referring here to the fishes of the sea, which were not included in the ark (Kalisch). That the entire brute creation was designed to be embraced in the Noachic covenant seems apparent from the use of the prepositions— בְּ describing the classes to which the animals belong, as in Genesis 7:21 ; מִן indicating one portion of the whole, the to minus aquo, and לְ the terminus ad quem— in their enumeration. Kalisch thinks the language applies only to the animals of Noah's time, and not to those of a later age, on the ground that "the destiny of the animals is everywhere connected with that of the human race;" but this is equivalent to their being included in the covenant.