What Does Genesis 7:13 Mean?
On this very day Noah came in, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark.
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
In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;THE KEY
The verse names a whole household crossing at the day’s very substance, making the entry both collective and exact.
THE MEANING
The crossing is shared: Noah, his sons, Noah’s wife, and their wives enter together, each named within the same household passage. The phrase “selfsame day” fixes their arrival in one particular day, held as a marked moment rather than an open-ended season.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The passage undoes the idea that this entry belongs to Noah alone: it names his wife, his sons, and their wives as part of the same crossing.
THE ROOT
בְּעֶצֶם
bəʿetsem
GROWS FROM
ע־צ־ם
ʿ-ṣ-m
Bone; by extension, substance or essence. Related forms also carry the sense of strength or might.
“On this very day” in this verse is bəʿetsem. The phrase is an idiom for that very day, but its key word also means bone or substance. English gives the precision; the Hebrew word beneath it carries the sense of the day at its very core.
ALSO GROWS
ʿetsem: Bone; substance or essence.
עֶצֶם
This concrete sense gives the phrase “selfsame day” a sense of the day itself, at its core.
ʿatsum: Mighty, immense, or numerous.
עָצוּם
The same root can describe force or magnitude; here its related sense of substance lends weight to the exact moment named.
בָּא
bāʾ
GROWS FROM
ב־ו־א
b-w-ʾ
To come, go, or enter.
“came in” in this verse is bāʾ. The verb rendered “entered” also means “came.” It presents the household’s movement as arrival at the ark, holding the destination together with the crossing into it.
ALSO GROWS
bōʾ: To come, go, or enter.
בּוֹא
This root’s wider range lets the verse sound both like an entry and an arrival at the place that receives the household.
hēvīʾ: To bring or cause to come.
הֵבִיא
The same root can describe bringing someone to a place; here the named household arrives together at the ark.
THE PATTERN
A passage becomes visible as a shared threshold when the text names the people who cross it.
And it came to be at the end of four hundred and thirty years, and on this very bone of the day it came to be, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.By trust Noah, warned of things not yet seen, moved with awe and built an ark for the deliverance of his house. Through it he judged against the world, and became an heir of the alignment that comes by trust.THE THREAD
And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his silver, every male among the men of Abraham's house; and he cut the flesh of their foreskin in the very bone of that day, as God had spoken to him.This verse uses the same phrase, בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה, “in the selfsame day,” to mark a household action at a precise moment. Here Abraham’s household is named in full as Noah’s household is named in the ark’s entry.
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