Wings, Windows, and Unexpected Provisions on the Ark

From where I'm sitting, I can see a pair of pigeons on the rooftop, walking along the ridge. There’s also a nesting pair in one of the bushes in the garden. It’s been lovely to see them, and they serve as a visual reminder of what God did in Genesis chapter 6.

In Genesis 6:18, God says, "I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you." This reminds us that it wasn't just two by two that creatures went into the ark to keep them safe. There were also those who went in sevens, just as human beings did – Shem, Ham, and Japheth with their wives, and then Noah’s wife also, if we don't count Noah in that number.

Genesis 6:19 continues: "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." So, we're given some categories here: birds after their kind, animals after their kind, and every creeping thing of the earth after its kind. These are the three main categories.

But then, something intriguing starts to happen in the text. If we skip over to Genesis 7:2, we are first told:

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.

This makes sense; it specifies that within those categories already described as going in two by two, there need to be seven of the clean animals rather than just two. But then, the text goes on to describe an extra category:

Also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.

Now, clean birds would have already been covered by the general statement that seven each of the clean animals had to go in. So, it seems to be adding an extra instruction that seven of each bird – whether unclean or clean – need to go into the ark. This mystery deepens when we look later in the chapter, in Genesis 7:14:

They and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind.

So far, so good. It's saying that everything went onto the ark according to its species. But then it adds: "every bird of every sort." It's only for the bird category that it says this extra phrase: "every bird of every sort."

Isn't that strange? In those two passages, the birds are specifically picked out for an additional statement each time.

That phrase, "every bird of every sort," uses a Hebrew word that also occurs in Genesis 1:21 where it talks about "every winged bird according to its kind." In Hebrew, where it says "its kind," it refers to species. And where it says "winged bird" (the word translated "every sort" in Genesis 7), it’s specifically referring to winged creatures. So, if we consider a solution to this mystery, it seems that Genesis 7:14 is saying something additional about birds: "every bird after its species, every bird of every wing."

It appears there was a special provision for unclean birds, that even they would go in by sevens. And perhaps there's an answer as to why this was the case, specifically for birds. In Proverbs 23:5, we find that same Hebrew word for "wings," and it’s used in the context of an unclean bird, the eagle – a carrion bird, therefore unclean:

Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

Is the answer to this mystery – as to why those extra birds were taken on the ark – simply that birds, unlike the other animals, have wings? There was only one window created in the ark, as Genesis 6:16 tells us:

You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side.

The window to the ark was high up. Nothing could get to it except, of course, the birds with wings. Was it simply that God wanted to safeguard every species of bird, whether clean or unclean, so that if some escaped and didn’t make it back again, there would still be sufficient to keep the species going?

So what about riches? We shouldn't set our heart on them because they can easily fly away, as Proverbs reminds us. Conversely, it seems to me that it's also handy to have some extra available for times of trouble and difficulty, or for when we need some extra money for something we hadn't anticipated. And so, even though the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, just as the birds considered here were sometimes unclean, it is still necessary to have more than we need of it in order to live a peaceful life without stress and undue anxiety.