Hebrew Bible Study
Hebrew Bible Study

Commentary for Genesis 6:21

וְאַתָּ֣ה קַח־לְךָ֗ מִכָּל־מַֽאֲכָל֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יֵֽאָכֵ֔ל וְאָסַפְתָּ֖ אֵלֶ֑יךָ וְהָיָ֥ה לְךָ֛ וְלָהֶ֖ם לְאָכְלָֽה׃

And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.’

Kli Yakar on Genesis

Take for yourself (or “from your own”). He was forbidden to take from others, even though everything was about to be destroyed. This would also increase the miracle since Noach surely did not possess enough to feed them all without a special blessing.
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Sforno on Genesis

ואתה קח לך מכל מאכל, different menus for different species of creatures.
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Radak on Genesis

ואתה קח לך, seeing that they will come to you in order to survive, you will have to prepare food for them, each species according to the type of diet it is used to. Even the predators will not be allowed to eat flesh while in the ark but would have to subsist on a vegetarian diet. They had, after all, been used to such a diet immediately after they had been created, as we have already explained on Genesis 1,25.
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Chizkuni

מכל מאכל, “from every category of food;” seeing that the ark contained all the living creatures that consumed food, Noach had to store the kind of food that was eaten by all these various creatures. The reason was that some creatures refused to touch food that other creatures enjoyed eating.
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