What instruction did God give Noah about the number of clean animal pairs entering the Ark?

Genesis 7:2 instructs Noah to take seven pairs of clean animals into the Ark.

The passage distinguishes clean animals from animals that are not clean. Noah is told to take seven pairs—literally described in some translations as seven “sevens”—of clean animals, while one pair of animals that are not clean is specified. Genesis 7:3 separately mentions seven pairs of birds.

This creates a detail often missed in simplified retellings, which commonly say that Noah took one pair of every animal. That summary captures the general survival theme but does not reproduce the more specific instructions in Genesis 7. The earlier instruction in Genesis 6:19–20 speaks more generally of pairs, contributing to differences in how readers reconcile the passages.

The clean-animal distinction also anticipates later biblical dietary laws. Genesis does not provide a complete species-by-species list here, so the answer is the stated number and category, not a modern zoological inventory.