Noah's righteousness and the significance of numbers

He does not act, but having slipped, he holds on; and he is not said to hate God, but to despise Him. Therefore, the dwelling place of the word is this: for the diligent, to be loved by God; for wickedness, to be hated; and again, for wickedness, to hold on to the worthless person, and for God, to be despised by such a person.

For no one is ever said to despise someone of sin or to hate God, even if the worthless ones, having leaned toward wickedness for a moment, are said to hate God according to: 'Lord, did I not hate those whom you hate?' (Psalm 43:22). But the Lord does not do this, but, having slipped, as it was said, he is said to hate. And to despise is the most important of such precision and observation, according to what is said again by the Savior: 'Whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him also' (Matthew 10:32)—not 'in me' he said, 'but I will deny him' (Matthew 10:33). For the one confessing God in Christ does this, but the one denying does not do this in Christ. Therefore, the confession must be in Him.

It has been said that confession is to those who are not such, but only to those saying it with words: 'They profess God, but their works deny Him' (Titus 1:16), and 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me' (Isaiah 29:13). For in the one confessing, the one being confessed is present, and the one confessing is in the one being confessed. But let no one think the same regarding 'I am in the Father and the Father is in me' (John 14:10); for the one signifies union, the other signifies being in the one being confessed, as is shown in 'whoever confesses in me,' where 'I will confess him also' is not changed—for God does not partake of man—but it signifies a judgment from God.

Not of the one confessing. Thus also it has been said concerning the sons of Noah and him and his wife and his sons, but as we have well observed: 'Enter, you and your sons with you' (Gen 7:1). For not he through them, but they through him and the benefit from him were saved. And this is confirmed by what is coming in the next, the saying of God to Noah: 'Because I saw you righteous before me in this generation' (Gen 6:9). For the greatness of his soul is shown by the 'righteous,' since it is not simply testified, but before God.

Regarding verse 19: And from all animals and from all flesh, two by two from all (Gen 7:2). If someone, aiming at the natures of numbers and knowing that the seven in the Scriptures has many prefigurations remembered, and the two is appropriate to the matter, as was said before, will understand how he arranged the number seven among the clean in the following, but the two among the unclean even now; and he will also seek how, even before the law was given concerning clean and unclean, the two is said, lest someone might argue that to the righteous was fore-seen the scientific arrangement of the law. And he also will provide how one man is so powerful over such animals as to even bring them into the ark; let him hear that it is given to the righteous to fulfill the command through God's cooperation, and nothing is improbable regarding what is said by God and the wild animals. And if even to the foremost of the apostles, Peter, in the vessel like a mirror of all animals, the images were made manifest, what is improbable if God brought together them because a world is to be made again, when he commands the righteous the bringing in of these, so that from them also a succession of generations might come after these things.

Regarding verses 19–20: 'You shall enter into the ark, so that you may nourish with you male...'