Commentaire sur La Genèse 7:22

נשמת רוח חיים means the breathing of the breath of life.

כל אשר נשמת רוח חיים באפיו, both the words נשמת and רוח are in a construct mode belonging to the word חיים, as if the Torah had written נשמת חיים ורוח חיים. Other examples of such a construction are found in Ezekiel 31,16 מבחר וטוב לבנון, “the choicest and best of Lebanon.” Or, Job 20,17 נהרי נחלי דבש וחמאה, “the streams, the rivers of honey, the brooks of cream.” The Torah, when referring to man, speaks of נשמת, whereas when speaking of the animals it describes their essence of life as רוח חיים.

A breath of the spirit of life. The Ibn Ezra writes that נשמת רוח חיים refers only to man. But [the Re’m disagrees, and says that] the text of Rashi should read נשימה, not נשמה, and it means “breath,” not “soul.” For animals have no נשמה, only man. Pertaining to man only is it written (2:7), “And He blew into his nostrils the נשמת חיים,” but not about other creatures.

Wenn es wahr sein sollte, dass die "Diluvialschichten" der Geologen von unserer "Sündflut" herrühren, so würde der Umstand, dass sich darin vorzugsweise nur Reste von Landtieren und nicht von Seetieren finden, in dem מכל אשר בחרבה מתו unseres Textes seine Erklärung finden, da diesem nach zunächst nur die Landtiere von der Flut ergriffen wurden.

אשר בחרבה WHATSOEVER WAS IN THE DRY LAND [DIED] — and not the fish in the sea (Sanhedrin 108a).

בחרבה, but the fish on the earth did not die. They were, after all in their habitat. Furthermore, apart from the technical reason why they would not drown in the water, more importantly, seeing that they had never shared the same habitat as man, they had not learned of man’s corrupt ways and become corrupt themselves. We must contrast the implication here that the fish did not die, with definitive statements threatening the death of the fish of the sea as a result of G’d’s retribution to man for his iniquity both in Hoseah 4,3 וגם דגי הים יאספו, “also the fish in the sea will perish,” as well as the statement in Tzefaniah 1,3 אסף עוף השמים ודגי הים, “both the birds in the sky I will sweep away as well as the fish in the sea.” Either what these prophets threaten are exaggerations, or if we are to take these threats at face value, literally, these predictions apply to specific countries but not world-wide. If the prophet speaks about events which have happened since he issued the threat in G’d’s name, he referred to the fish adjoining a specific country being devastated by G’d, but this did not result in a species of fish being wiped out on a global scale. At the time of the deluge there was a wholesale destruction of life on the earth barring the seas, except for the few specimen of each species that survived in the ark. The specimen that were saved did not deserve to die any less than their counterparts, but they were saved in order not to make it necessary for G’d to create them anew after the deluge. It had been inappropriate for G’d to destroy the fish, or even to save them by means of a miracle, as they would not have been able to share the accommodation in the ark, and the ark itself would have sunk if part of it had been converted into an aquarium holding all the fish.

But not the fish in the sea. Perhaps this was Rashi’s intention when on “For all flesh had corrupted...” (6:12), he commented: “Even cattle and beasts...” but omitted fish. The verse itself implies this, for it is written על הארץ — but not fish in the sea. (Kitzur Mizrachi)

מכל אשר בחרבה מתו, “of all the creatures whose habitat is on the dry land, they died.” This teaches that the fish in the rivers and in the oceans did not die. They were able to escape the destruction by fleeing to the oceans as the deluge had been decreed only on earth. This is the meaning of the words (verse 12) “the rain was on the earth.”