But with thee will I establish my covenant
Made with Noah at this time, though not expressed, that on his
making an ark, as God directed him, and going into it at his
command, he would preserve him while building it from the rage of
wicked men, and save him in it and his family, when the flood
should come; and that they should come safe out of it, and
repeople the world, which should be no more destroyed by one; for
this covenant respects that later mentioned, ( Genesis
9:11-17 ) so Aben Ezra; or the promise of the Messiah, which
should spring from him, for the fulfilment of which Noah and his
family were spared; and this in every article God would confirm,
of which he might be assured from his power, veracity, and
faithfulness, and other perfections of his: and thou shalt
come into the ark;
when the covenant would begin more clearly to be established, and
more plainly to be fulfilling; Noah on the one hand being
obedient to the divine will, having built an ark, and entering
into it; and on the other, God giving him leave, and an order to
enter into it, and shutting him up in it to preserve him:
thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with
thee;
that is, Noah and his wife, and his sons and their wives, in all
eight persons; and eight only, as the Apostle Peter observes, (
1 Peter
3:20 ) by this it appears that Noah's three sons were married
before the flood, but as yet had no children. Jarchi concludes,
from the mode of expression used, that the men and women were to
be separate; that they entered the ark in this manner, and
continued so, the use of the marriage bed being forbidden them
while in the ark.
Genesis 6:18
