Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
Noah brought two of every animal onto the ark
That's the first instruction. A second, more detailed one follows, and the Hebrew doubling in it reads either as seven pairs of clean animals or as seven, against two of unclean.
Genesis 7:2, in every translation this tool compares.
Genesis 6:19-20 gives the general command most people remember first: "two of every sort… to keep them alive with you." Genesis 7:2-3 then gives Noah a more detailed follow-up instruction: seven pairs of every clean animal, and one pair of every unclean animal. Both commands are genuinely in the text; most retellings keep only the first.
The reason for the extra clean animals becomes clear later in the story rather than at the point of instruction: once the flood ends, Noah builds an altar and offers burnt offerings from the clean animals and birds (Genesis 8:20), which only works if there were extras to spare beyond a single breeding pair. The two instructions aren't a contradiction so much as a general command followed by the specific operational detail that makes the rest of the story possible.
