Genesis instructs Noah to bring seven pairs of clean animals onto the Ark.
Genesis 7:2 distinguishes between clean and unclean animals. Noah is told to take seven pairs of every clean animal, consisting of a male and its female, but only one pair of every animal considered unclean. Genesis 7:3 separately gives seven pairs of birds.
This detail is sometimes simplified in popular retellings into “two of every animal.” That phrase captures the pair structure but leaves out the special provision for clean animals. The distinction matters because the biblical narrative later describes Noah building an altar and offering some clean animals after leaving the Ark.
The passage is also discussed by scholars because Genesis contains overlapping flood traditions and uses more than one pattern for describing the animals. Nevertheless, within the received Genesis text, the explicit instruction in chapter 7 is seven pairs for clean animals and one pair for unclean animals.