Genesis 7:22

All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
nostrils	בְּאַפָּ֗יו be.'a.Pav	H639	properly · preposition + noun, common masculine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
breath	נִשְׁמַת nish.mat-	H5397	a puff · noun, common feminine singular construct
life	חַיִּ֜ים chai.Yim	H2416	alive · noun, common masculine plural absolute
dry	בֶּחָֽרָבָ֖ה be.cha.ra.Vah	H2724	a desert · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
died	מֵֽתוּ Me.tu	H4191	to die (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; a…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 7:21–end

Here is, I. The general destruction of all flesh by the waters of the flood. Come, and see the desolations which God makes in the earth (Psa 46:8), and how he lays heaps upon heaps. Never did death triumph, from its first entrance unto this day, as it did then. Come, and see Death upon his pale horse, and hell following with him, Rev 6:7, Rev 6:8. 1. All the cattle, fowl, and creeping things, died, except the few that were in the ark. Observe how this is repeated: All flesh died, Gen 7:21. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, Gen 7:22. Every living substance, Gen 7:23. And why so? Man only had done wickedly, and justly is God's hand against him; but…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 7:21

all flesh died . . . fowl . . . cattle, and . . . creeping thing--It has been a uniform principle in the divine procedure, when judgments were abroad on the earth, to include every thing connected with the sinful objects of His wrath (Gen 19:25; Exo 9:6). Besides, now that the human race was reduced to one single family, it was necessary that the beasts should be proportionally diminished, otherwise by their numbers they would have acquired the ascendancy and overmastered the few that were to repeople the world. Thus goodness was mingled with severity; the Lord exercises judgment in wisdom and in wrath remembers mercy.

Adam Clarke on Genesis 7:22

Of all that was in the dry land - From this we may conclude that such animals only as could not live in the water were preserved in the ark.

John Gill on Genesis 7:22

All in whose nostrils was the breath of life,.... Whether of fowls, beast, cattle, or creeping things: of all that was in the dry land, died; by which description fishes were excepted, since they breathe not, having no lungs, and are not on the dry land, where they cannot live, but in the waters. Some pretend it to be the opinion of some Jewish writers, that the fishes did die, the waters being made hot, and scalded them; but this fable I have not met with.

The Church Fathers

IT IS WRITTEN, "THE WATER ROSE ABOVE THE EARTH FOR A HUNDRED AND FIFTY DAYS." — In relation to the phrase: And the waters prevailed on the earth a hundred and fifty days , it is wondered if it grew until that day or if it remained during all those days in the height that it acquired, because other translators seem rather to say the latter. Aquila, for example, says: “reached”; Symmachus: “they excelled”, the waters, is understood. [
— Augustine of Hippo, QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 10 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Then, a little further on in the same book [Genesis], one could just as easily have noticed the verse "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died." This means that everything that lived on the earth perished in the flood. Thus we find that Holy Scripture is accustomed to use both phrases—"living soul" and "the breath of life"—in regard even to beasts, and in the verse "All things wherein there is the breath of life" the Greek text does not use the word pneuma but pnoē.
— Augustine of Hippo, City of God 13.24

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Deluge — The name given to Noah’s flood, the history of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. It began in the year 2516 B.C., and continued twelve lunar months and ten days, or exactly one solar year. The cause…
Flood — An event recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. (See DELUGE.) In Josh. 24:2, 3, 14, 15, the word “flood” (R.V., “river”) means the river Euphrates. In Ps. 66:6, this word refers to the river Jordan.
Judgments of God — (1.) The secret decisions of God’s will (Ps. 110:5; 36:6). (2.) The revelations of his will (Ex. 21:1; Deut. 6:20; Ps. 119:7-175). (3.) The infliction of punishment on the wicked (Ex. 6:6; 12:12;…
Anger Of God, The · Exemplified against: The old world — Exemplified against: The old world
Antediluvians · General references — General references
Breath · Of life — Of life
Man · Quickened by the breath of God — Quickened by the breath of God
Rain · Forty days of, at the time of the great flood of Noah — Forty days of, at the time of the great flood of Noah
Water · The world and its inhabitants once destroyed by — The world and its inhabitants once destroyed by

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Genesis 7:22

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 7:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 7:21

Adam Clarke on Genesis 7:22

John Gill on Genesis 7:22

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Genesis 7:22

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 7:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 7:21

Adam Clarke on Genesis 7:22

John Gill on Genesis 7:22

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Genesis 7:17–end

Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 7:17–end

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 7:22

Rashi on Genesis 7:22