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How many of each clean and unclean animal did Noah take on the ark?

Was it 2 of each, a male and female? Was it 2 of each unclean animal, a male and female? Was it 7 of each, three couples and one single? Was it 7 of each clean animal?

The answer? None of the above. Sometimes it is amazing what the Bible actually tells us.

Here is the text – you do the math:

Genesis 6:19-20

And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

This does not say that Noah only took 2 of every kind. It says, as we shall see in the next text, that Noah took the animals is pairs. If he took a male he also took a female.

Genesis 7:2-3; 7-9

You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.

So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

If we do the math we see that for each kind of animal Noah took pairs, a male and female. Further we see that he took 7 pairs of each kind of clean animals and 2 pairs of each kind of unclean animals. So how many of each animal did Noah take on the ark?

Fourteen of each kind of clean animal, in seven pairs of a male and a female, and four of each kind of unclean animal, in two pairs of a male and a female.

And they entered the ark two at a time – as couples!