What Does Genesis 7:13 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
“selfsame” 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.
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 pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.THE THREAD
And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto 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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