In verse 8 the picture is of clean and unclean animals entering the boat. However, now they go not as seven pairs of clean and one pair of unclean, but rather as a single pair of each. Some scholars interpret this as an editor’s attempt to harmonize verses 8-9 with 6.19-20.

Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds follows the Hebrew way of expression and creates an unnatural English style. In order to avoid this awkwardness, it is often necessary to take verses 8 and 9 as a unit. We may restructure these verses as Good News Translation does, or we may say, for example, “Noah took with him into the boat a pair of every clean and unclean, large and small, animals and birds. So Noah obeyed what God had told him to do.” If the translator follows this arrangement, verse numbers 8-9 should be written together.

For everything that creeps on the ground, see discussion under 1.24.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .