What Does Genesis 6:20 Mean?
Of the birds after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind shall come to you, to keep them alive.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “keep them alive” carries the force of causing life to continue, so the ark holds life forward in all its distinct forms.
THE MEANING
Life meets you in distinct forms, each carrying its own pattern of continuity. What comes into your keeping can remain itself and still be carried forward. The verse’s movement is toward keeping life present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that survival means preserving life in one uniform form is undone: each creature is carried forward “after his kind.”
THE ROOT
לְהַחֲיוֹת
lehachayot
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live or be alive; in this verb form, to cause to live or keep alive.
“to keep them alive” in this verse is lehachayot. The Hebrew verb carries the force of causing life to continue. Its root also forms words for “living” and “life,” joining the act of preservation to the lives being preserved.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living; alive
חַי
This names the state the verse’s verb preserves: remaining alive.
chayyah: Living creature; animal
חַיָּה
The same life-root can name an animal, connecting the creatures brought to Noah with the act of keeping them alive.
chayyim: Life
חַיִּים
This broader life-word shows the shared root beneath the creatures’ continued existence.
THE PATTERN
Life continues through the preservation of its distinct forms.
And God said, "Let the earth bring out living soul after its kind, cattle, creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind." And it was so.Your alignment is like the mountains of God; your judgments are a great deep. O LORD, you deliver humankind and beast.The thief comes only to steal, and to slaughter, and to make perish. I came that they might have life, and have it overflowing.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis 6:20 uses a form of חיה, “to keep alive”; Genesis 2:7 uses the same root in נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, “living soul.” The ark’s preservation of animal lives echoes this first naming of a living being: life is the shared thread across different kinds.
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