And with every living creature that is with you: living creature is as in 1.20, 24 and is furthermore divided here into three categories: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth. Cattle refers to domestic animals, and beast to wild animals. Nothing is said about the creeping animals. Good News Translation uses dashes to show that “all living beings” is to be understood as “all birds, and all animals.” Good News Translation has put domestic and wild animals together as “all animals.”

As many as came out of the ark, as the Revised Standard Version footnote shows, follows the Septuagint. The Hebrew text repeats “every beast of the earth,” adding this phrase at the end. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, which gives the Hebrew text an {A} rating, explains that the Hebrew prepositions “from” (all that go out of the ark) and “to” (every beast of the earth) means there are two categories: “first those which came out of the ark, and then those which live thereafter on the earth.” Accordingly Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends “all those coming out of the ark as well as all beasts of the earth.” Neither Revised Standard Version nor Good News Translation follows the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommendation, but many other modern translations do, and translators are encouraged to do likewise. Some models to follow are Bible en français courant, “and everything that lives around you: birds, domestic and wild animals, those that came out of the boat, and all that will in the future live on the earth,” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “and with all the animals that were with you in the boat and that will live on the earth in the future.” In some languages the action of coming out of the boat is not stated directly but is understood from the fact of the animals and birds having been on the boat with Noah; for example, “… animals and birds … everything that was with you on the boat…” and “… the animals and birds that you took with you in the boat.”

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 .