And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
20 23. The Fifth Day. The Creation of Water Animals and Flying Animals
20. Let the waters life ] The rendering, “bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,” fails to give the full meaning of the original. Literally, the words mean “let the waters swarm swarms, even living soul”: and the purpose of the command is that the waters are to teem with myriads of living animals. Hence the R.V. margin, “swarm with swarms of living creatures” is closer to the original; but it fails to reproduce the phrase “living soul,” in apposition to the word translated “swarms.” No translation is satisfactory which fails to give prominence to the thought, that the waters are to teem with things endowed with a wondrous new gift, the active principle of animal life, which the Hebrews called nephesh, and which is nearly represented by the Greek . We might, therefore, translate “let the waters swarm with swarms of creatures, even with countless things which have life.”
That there should ever be any difficulty in deciding whether an organism belonged to the vegetable or to the animal “kingdom would never have occurred to an ancient writer.
The rendering “the moving creature” went wrong in following the ancient versions, which supposed that the word rendered in the margin “swarm,” denoted only “creeping things” or “reptiles.” LXX . Lat. reptile animae viventis. This gives an entirely false impression. The command is for the creation of all sorts of water animals.
and let fowl fly ] Rather, “and let winged things fly.” The command includes all creatures with wings, e.g. bats, butterflies, beetles, insects, as well as birds.
in the open firmament of heaven ] This rendering scarcely reproduces the sense of the Hebrew words, which literally mean “in the face of,” or “over against, the firmament of heaven.” The idea is that winged things are to fly “above” the earth, and “in front of” the vault of heaven. The R.V. margin, on the face of the expanse of the heaven, is cumbrous and obscure. The meaning seems to be that the flight of winged things shall be in mid air, “in front,” as it were, of the solid “firmament of heaven,” which was not remote. The winged creatures would continually be visible against the sky.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– VII. The Fifth Day
20. sharats, crawl, teem, swarm, abound. An intransitive verb, admitting, however, an objective noun of its own or a like signification.
nephesh, breath, soul, self. This noun is derived from a root signifying to breathe. Its concrete meaning is, therefore, that which breathes, and consequently has a body, without which there can be no breathing; hence, a breathing body, and even a body that once had breath Num 6:6. As breath is the accompaniment and sign of life, it comes to denote life, and hence, a living body, an animal. And as life properly signifies animal life, and is therefore essentially connected with feeling, appetite, thought, nephesh, denotes also these qualities, and what possesses them. It is obvious that it denotes the vital principle not only in man but in the brute. It is therefore a more comprehensive word than our soul, as commonly understood.
21. tannyn, long creature, a comprehensive genus, including vast fishes, serpents, dragons, crocodiles; stretch.
22. barak break, kneel; bless.
The solitude bohu, the last and greatest defect in the state of the earth, is now to be removed by the creation of the various animals that are to inhabit it and partake of its vegetable productions.
On the second day the Creator was occupied with the task of reducing the air and water to a habitable state. And now on the corresponding day of the second three he calls into existence the inhabitants of these two elements. Accordingly, the animal kingdom is divided into three parts in reference to the regions to be inhabited – fishes, birds, and land animals. The fishes and birds are created on this day. The fishes seem to be regarded as the lowest type of living creatures.
They are here subdivided only into the monsters of the deep and the smaller species that swarm in the waters.
Gen 1:20
The crawler – sherets apparently includes all animals that have short legs or no legs, and are therefore unable to raise themselves above the soil. The aquatic and most amphibious animals come under this class. The crawler of living breath, having breath, motion, and sensation, the ordinary indications of animal life. Abound with. As in Gen 1:11 we have, Let the earth grow grass, ( tadshe deshe’, so here we have, Let the waters crawl with the crawler, yshretsu sherets; the verb and noun having the same root. The waters are here not the cause but the element of the fish, as the air of the fowl. Fowl, everything that has wings. The face of the expanse. The expanse is here proved to be aerial or spatial; not solid, as the fowl can fly on it.
Gen 1:21
Created. – Here the author uses this word for the second time. In the selection of different words to express the divine operation, two considerations seem to have guided the authors pen – variety and propriety of diction. The diversity of words appears to indicate a diversity in the mode of exercising the divine power. On the first day Gen 1:3 a new admission of light into a darkened region, by the partial rarefaction of the intervening medium, is expressed by the word be. This may denote what already existed, but not in that place. On the second day Gen 1:6-7 a new disposition of the air and the water is described by the verbs be and make. These indicate a modification of what already existed. On the third day Gen 1:9, Gen 1:11 no verb is directly applied to the act of divine power. This agency is thus understood, while the natural changes following are expressly noticed. In the fourth Gen 1:14, Gen 1:16-17 the words be, make, and give occur, where the matter in hand is the manifestation of the heavenly bodies and their adaptation to the use of man. In these cases it is evident that the word create would have been only improperly or indirectly applicable to the action of the Eternal Being. Here it is employed with propriety; as the animal world is something new and distinct summoned into existence. It is manifest from this review that variety of expression has resulted from attention to propriety.
Great fishes. – Monstrous crawlers that wriggle through the water or scud along the banks.
Every living, breathing thing that creeps. – The smaller animals of the water and its banks.
Bird of wing. – Here the wing is made characteristic of the class, which extends beyond what we call birds. The Maker inspects and approves His work.
Gen 1:22
Blessed them. – We are brought into a new sphere of creation on this day, and we meet with a new act of the Almighty. To bless is to wish, and, in the case of God, to will some good to the object of the blessing. The blessing here pronounced upon the fish and the fowl is that of abundant increase.
Bear. – This refers to the propagation of the species.
Multiply. – This notifies the abundance of the offspring.
Fill the waters. – Let them be fully stocked.
In the seas. – The sea of Scripture includes the lake, and, by parity of reason, the rivers, which are the feeders of both. This blessing seems to indicate that, whereas in the case of some plants many individuals of the same species were simultaneously created, so as to produce a universal covering of verdure for the land and an abundant supply of aliment for the animals about to be created – in regard to these animals a single pair only, at all events of the larger kinds, was at first called into being, from which, by the potent blessing of the Creator, was propagated the multitude by which the waters and the air were peopled.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 1:20-23
Let the waters bring forth abundantly
Fish and fowl
I.
THAT LIFE IS THE IMMEDIATE CREATION OF GOD.
1. Life was not an education.
2. It was not the result of combination.
3. It was a miraculous gift. There are two words in this sentence that should be remembered, and joined together most closely, they are God and life. This should be so in the soul of man, as God is the source of its true and higher life. If the Church were to remember the connection of these two great words, she would be much more powerful in her toil. Life was at first the miraculous gift of God. Its continuance is His gift.
II. THAT LIFE IS VARIED IN ITS MANIFESTATION AND CAPABILITY.
1. Life is varied in its manifestations. There were created on this day both fish and fowl. Thus life is not a monotony. It assumes different forms. It grows in different directions. It has several kingdoms. It has numerous conditions of growth.
2. Life is varied in its capability. The fish swim in the water. The fowls fly in the air; the abilities and endowments of each are distinct and varied. Each takes a part in the great ministry of the universe. The whole in harmony is the joy of man.
3. Life is abundant and rich in its source. The waters brought forth abundantly. There was no lack of life-giving energy on the part of God. The world is crowded with life. The universe will not soon become a grave, for even in death there is life, hidden but effective to a new harvest.
4. Life is good in its design.
III. THAT THE LOWER SPHERES OF LIFE ARE RICHLY ENDOWED WITH THE DIVINE BLESSING.
1. It was the blessing of increasing numbers.
2. It was the blessing of an extended occupation of the land and sea.
3. Let us always remember that the blessing of God rests upon the lower spheres of life. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Genesis of the animals
I. EXPLANATION OF THE PASSAGE.
1. Animals the issue of fifth and sixth days.
2. Panorama of the emerging animals. Lo! the nautilus spreads his sail, and the caterpillar winds his cocoon, and the spider weaves his web, and the salmon darts through the sea, and the lizard glides among the rocks, and the eagle soars the sky, and the lion roams the jungle, and the monkey chatters among the trees, and all animate creation waits the advent and lordship of man, Gods inspiration and therefore Gods image, Gods image and therefore Gods viceroy.
3. The animal succession a progress.
(1) Animals of the water.
(2) Animals of the air.
(3) Animals of the land.
(4) Man.
And with this Mosaic account of the origin of life, ascending from plant, by way of animal, to man, the geological records substantially agree: first, plants and fishes of the Palaeozoic period; secondly, birds and reptiles of the Mesozoic period; thirdly, mammals and man of the Neozoic period.
4. After their kind. Almost like a prophetic caveat against the modern hypothesis of the mutability of species.
5. The Creators blessing. The benediction of fertility.
6. The Divine delight.
II. MORAL MEANING OF THE STORY.
1. Animals have souls. What in man we call reason, in animals we call instinct. As that mysterious force which vitalizes and builds up the fabric of the human body is the same mysterious force which vitalizes and builds up the fabric of the animalcule, so that mysterious guide which teaches Newton how to establish the law of gravity, and Shakespeare how to write his Hamlet, and Stephenson how to bridge the St. Lawrence, seems substantially to be the same mysterious guide which teaches the beaver how to build his dam, and the spider how to weave his web, and the ant how to dig his spiral home. The difference does not seem to be so much a difference in nature or kind, as in degree or intensity. As the diamond is the same substance with charcoal–only under superior crystalline figure–so reason seems to be substantially the same with instinct–only in an intensely organized state. One thing is common to man and animals: it is that mysterious principle or force which, in want of a better name, and in distinction from the term spirit, we call soul.
2. Animals perhaps are immortal. I quote from that profound treatise by Louis Agassiz, entitled Essay on Classification: Most of the arguments of philosophy in favour of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency of the immaterial principle in other living beings. May I not add that a future life in which man should be deprived of that great source of enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement, which results from the contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world, would involve a lamentable loss? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the combined worlds and all their inhabitants in presence of their Creator, as the highest conception of paradise? (See Rom 8:19-23.) (G. D.Boardman.)
The prolific character of the life of the ocean
The finny tribes are specially prolific. The eggs of fish, or spawn, produce vast multitudes. The row of a codfish contains nine millions of eggs, of a flounder, about a million and a half, and of a mackerel, half a million. The unchecked produce of one pair of herrings would in a very few years crowd the Atlantic. So is it also with birds. The passenger pigeon of North America has been seen in flocks a mile broad, and taking four hours in passing, at the rate of a mile a minute, and was calculated to contain 250 millions of Psa 104:24-25). The microscope also shows there are beings with perfect organs of nutrition and locomotion, a million of which would not exceed in bulk one grain of sand, and eight millions of which might be compressed within a grain of mustard seed. Others are so small that 500 millions of them could live in a dish of water. There are even animalcules so minute that a cubic inch could contain a million millions of them. (Jacobus.)
Shoals of animalculae
Some few years ago a newspaper correspondent, writing from the Gulf of Siam, said: We steamed forward at the rate of six or seven knots an hour, and a wonderful spectacle presented itself. Athwart the vessel, long white waves of light were seen rushing towards it, ever brighter and in swifter motion, till they seemed to flow together, and at length nothing could be seen on the water but a whirling white light. Looking stedfastly at it, the water, the air, and the horizon seemed blended in one; thick streamers of mist seemed to float by both sides of the ship with frantic speed. The appearances of colour resembled those which arise when one turns a black-and-white striped ball so quickly that the white stripes seem to run together. The spectacle lasted for five minutes, and was repeated once again for two minutes. No doubt it was caused by shoals of animalculae in the water.
Resemblances between fishes and birds
I must tell you of a discovery made by a very dear friend whom I have lost, the excellent Dr. Prevost, a learned anatomist of Geneva. He often mentioned it to me as affording a remarkable testimony to the Word of God. It helps to explain the words of the 20th verse. We may perhaps wonder that two such apparently different kinds of creatures as fishes and birds should be classed together. Who among us would have thought of such an arrangement? But, dear children, scientific men have discovered, on examination, that there are very close resemblances between them in their anatomical structure and in some other things. Both spring from eggs; and while the one class–the birds–swim in the air with wings, the other–the fishes–fly in the water with fins. And besides these points of resemblance, the discovery made by Dr. Prevost, which astonished himself and interested the learned world very much, was this, that the globules of the blood of fishes and birds are seen to be the same, when closely examined, and do not at all resemble the globules of the blood of those animals which sprang from the earth on the sixth day. (Prof. Gaussen.)
Some of the faculties and organs of fishes
Fishes appear to be endowed with the senses common to land animals. Those of touch and taste are supposed to be feeble, in general: though some are furnished with flexible feelers, or organs of touch. Their organs of smelling and hearing are more acute, and are in their structure happily adapted to the element in which they live. These latter senses have no external avenues, as in land animals; for immediate and perpetual contact with the dense element of water would soon prove ruinous to their delicate and sensitive nerves. Smelling is said to be the most acute of all their senses. The olfactory membrane and nerves in them are of remarkable extent; in a large shark they expand over a surface of no less than twelve or thirteen square feet. Hence, by this sense the finny tribes can discover their prey or their enemies at a great distance, and direct their course in the thickest darkness, and amid the most agitated waves. Possessing the foregoing faculties fishes are not without a degree of sagacity. They have been found even capable of instruction, and been taught to come when called by their names, and to assemble for their food at the sound of a whistle or bell. They are said to be among the most long-lived of all animals. The carp has been known to reach more than a hundred years of age. And Kirby relates that a pike was taken in 1754, at Kaiserslautern, which had a ring fastened to the gill covers, from which it appeared to have been put into the pond of that castle by order of Frederick II in 1487–a period of two hundred and sixty-seven years. Fishes excel in strength, and seem to be capable of prolonged exertion without apparent fatigue. Even the feathered tribe, in this, must yield the palm to the finny race. The shark will out travel the eagle, and the salmon will out strip the swallow in speed. The thunny will dart with the rapidity of an arrow, and the herring will travel for days and weeks at the rate of sixteen miles an hour, without respite or repose. Sharks have been observed to follow and play around a ship through its whole voyage across the Atlantic; and the same fish, when harpooned, has been known to drag a vessel of heavy tonnage at a high speed against wind and tide. (Prof. Gaussen.)
Fecundity of fishes
This blessing is to be regarded, not simply as a solemn word of command, but the imparting of reproducing energies to the varied tribes of the deep. And to see how effective this blessing was, we need but look at the results which followed. Nothing can exceed that abundance brought forth. If we attempt to estimate the number of eggs in the toes of various kinds of fish, we may be able to form some faint conception of it. The roe of the cod fish, according to Harmers estimate, contains 3,686,000 eggs; of the flounder, 225,000; of the mackerel, 500,000; of the tench, 350,000; of the carp, 203,000; of the roach, 100,000; of the sole, nearly 100,000; of the pike, 50,000; of the herring, the perch, and the smelt, from 20,000 to 30,000. Other species are equally prolific. Such numbers present an idea of fecundity that is truly overwhelming. It must be observed, however, that a large proportion of the eggs deposited are destroyed in various ways; they are eagerly sought after by other fishes, by aquatic birds, and by reptiles, as food; and in the young state, they are pursued and devoured by larger ones of their own species, as well as by those of others. Still the numbers which arrive at maturity surpass all comprehension, as appears from the countless myriads of those that are of gregarious and migratory habits. Impelled and guided by that mysterious power we call instinct, fishes, at certain seasons, migrate and travel in immense droves to seek a suitable place and temperature for the reproduction of their species. Vast migrations take place from the oceans into all the rivers of the earth; the salmon and others often ascend large streams in great numbers for hundreds and even thousands of miles. Vaster yet by far are the migrations that occur in the ocean from one region to another. The migratory tribes of the sea are very numerous; of these, among the best known is the cod; at spawning time these fish proceed northward, and frequent the shallows of the ocean, such as the banks of Newfoundland, where they are found in infinite multitudes. The haddock resorts, in like manner, to northern coasts, and has been found in immense shoals of more than twenty miles long and three miles broad. The mackerel also is a migratory tribe; these winter in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, from whence in the spring they emerge from their hiding places in innumerable myriads, and proceed to more genial seas to deposit their eggs. The thunny travels for the same end in numbers without number. But the most notable of all the migratory species are the herrings; these, like many others, pass the winter in high northern latitudes, and at different times through the summer, proceed southward in search of food, and to deposit their spawn. Some idea of their numbers may be formed from the vast quantities that are taken. Many years since, when the business was prosecuted on a more limited scale than at present, it was reported that on the coast of Norway no less than 20,000,000 were frequently taken at a single fishing; and that the average capture of the season exceeded 400,000,000. At Gottenberg, 700,000,000 were annually caught. Yet all these millions were but a fraction of the numbers taken by the English, Dutch, and other nations. But all that are taken by all nations put together, are no more missed from the countless hosts of the ocean than a drop out of the full bucket. Their shoals, says Kirby, consist of millions of myriads, and are many leagues in width, many fathoms in depth, and so dense that the fishes touch each other; and this stream continues to move at a rapid rate past any particular point nearly all summer. If, then, these single groups of a few species that happen to fall under the observation of man be thus numerous, or rather innumerable, it is obvious that the aggregate of all the orders, genera, and species, making up the whole population of the deep, must infinitely transcend all the powers of human enumeration! (Prof. Gaussen.)
Birds
As in the beauteous creations of the vegetable world, and among the countless living tenants of the deep, so also among the birds of the air, we behold indubitable evidences and most impressive displays of the universal and constant agency of God. In all their doings and movements, the guiding finger of their Creator is clearly seen. Prior to all experience, and independent of all instruction, we see the little feathered tribes undertake and accomplish all the ingenious duties of their being; and accomplish them, too, with a certainty and perfection which no instruction could teach, and no experience improve. The sparrow performs and goes through with the whole process of building, laying, hatching, and rearing, as successfully the first time as the last. And whence is all this to the little bird of the air, if not from the omnipresent and infinite Spirit? Who or what leads the young female bird to prepare a nest, untaught and undirected, long before she has need of it? Who instructs each particular species in its own peculiar style of architecture? And when the first egg is brought forth, who teaches her what she must do with it? or that it is a thing to be taken care of, that it must be laid and preserved in the nest? And the germ of future life being wrapped in the egg, who teaches its little owner that heat will develop and mature that germ? Who acquaints her with the fact that her own body possesses the precise kind and degree of warmth required? And what is it that holds her so constantly and so long upon the nest, amid light and darkness, storm and sunshine, without the least knowledge or idea as to what the result or fruit of all this toil and self-denial is to be? Here, then, are operations carried on, and effects produced, which must constrain every candid mind to recognize in them the invisible band of God. Again, the migration of birds–how astonishing is all this! The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming. So fixed are the dates of departing and returning with many tribes of the feathered race that, in certain eastern countries at the present day, almanacs are timed and bargains struck upon the data they supply. Now, who informs them that the day is come for them to take their leave? or announces to them that the time has arrived for their return? Without science, without a map, without a compass, without a waymark, who acquaints them with the direction they are to take? or measures out for them the length of the journey they have to perform? Who enables them to pursue undeviatingly their course over pathless oceans, and through the trackless voids of the atmosphere, alike in the day time and in the night season, and to arrive exactly at the same spot from year to year? To whom shall we ascribe this extraordinary power–to God, or to the little bird? It must be either to the one, or to the other. It is obvious that the little bird does not possess either the reasoning powers, or the geographical acquaintance, or the meteorological knowledge, which would enable it either to plan or to carry out such astonishing enterprises. Indeed, could man thus, amid all storms and darkness, infallibly steer his voyages over the main, it would render superfluous the use of his compass and sextant, and enable him at once to dispense with his trigonometry and logarithms. Whatever name, then, we may give this mysterious power, and in whatever light we may regard these astonishing facts, correct and sound reasoning as well as the Scripture, will lead us to the conviction and acknowledgment of the illustrious Newton, that all this is done through the immediate influence and guidance of Him, in whom all live and move and have their being, and without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground. In the feathered population of our globe we also behold, not proofs only, but most interesting and delightful displays of the goodness of God. The very introduction of the winged race into the new-made world was, in itself, a demonstration of the benevolence of the Divine mind, as they constitute one of its most beautiful and lovely features. Birds are also living parables, and as such the Great Teacher often employed them. (Prof. Gaussen.)
Insects
On the fifth day were also produced the insect population of the new-made world, for these, as well as birds, must be included in the term winged thing. This department of animated nature presents to us a field of study all but illimitable, insects being by far the most numerous and diversified of all the living orders that occupy the dry land. Not less than 100,000 different species are already known, and many more doubtless remain to be discovered. A distinguished naturalist has made the statement, that there are probably six species of insects to every species of plants; this estimate, therefore, would make the entire number of insect species on the face of the globe considerably over half a million. The insect tribes are of all conceivable forms, habits, and instincts. (Prof. Gaussen.)
Reflections on the insect creation
Insects, like every other class of living creatures, have their place to occupy, and their office to fulfil in the Divine plan, and form an essential link in the great chain of animated nature. Small and insignificant as they appear, viewed singly, yet taken collectively, they make up armies far more potent and formidable than either Alexander, or Caesar, or Bonaparte ever mustered; and these being everywhere dispersed, and daily and hourly at work in their several departments, they constitute an agency of great power, and no doubt of great good, in the economy of the world. We may not be able to determine how, or what, each particular species contributes to the benefit of the great whole; but we may be sure that their great variety of organs, and their wonderful instinctive capacities, have been bestowed upon them for ends worthy of the wisdom that produced them. The works of the Lord are perfect, and nothing has been made in vain. Insects are an ornament to the earths scenery, and, no doubt, were designed by the munificent Creator to be objects of pleasurable observation and study to man. The insect creation teaches us that God is to be seen in the least as well as in the greatest of His works. He is in all and through all. The guidance of His finger is to be traced as distinctly in the circles of the spiders web as in the orbits of the planets; and the operation of His hand is as plainly seen in the lustre of an insects wing, as in the resplendent disk of the sun, which sheds light and life on surrounding globes. In the history of insects, we meet with the most beautiful illustration that all nature affords of the great and distinguishing doctrine of Christianity–the resurrection of the dead. (Prof. Gaussen.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. Let the waters bring forth abundantly] There is a meaning in these words which is seldom noticed. Innumerable millions of animalcula are found in water. Eminent naturalists have discovered not less than 30,000 in a single drop! How inconceivably small must each be, and yet each a perfect animal, furnished with the whole apparatus of bones, muscles, nerves, heart, arteries, veins, lungs, viscera in general, animal spirits, c., c. What a proof is this of the manifold wisdom of God! But the fecundity of fishes is another point intended in the text no creature’s are so prolific as these. A TENCH lay 1,000 eggs, a CARP 20,000, and Leuwenhoek counted in a middling sized COD 9,384,000! Thus, according to the purpose of God, the waters bring forth abundantly. And what a merciful provision is this for the necessities of man! Many hundreds of thousands of the earth’s inhabitants live for a great part of the year on fish only. Fish afford, not only a wholesome, but a very nutritive diet they are liable to few diseases, and generally come in vast quantities to our shores when in their greatest perfection. In this also we may see that the kind providence of God goes hand in hand with his creating energy. While he manifests his wisdom and his power, he is making a permanent provision for the sustenance of man through all his generations.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The moving creature, or, creeping thing. A word which belongs to all those living creatures who move with their bellies close to the element they move in. Hence it is used both of birds which fly in the air, Lev 11:20, and of things creeping upon the earth, as Gen 1:24, and of fishes that swim in the sea, as here.
And fowl that may fly above the earth. The particle that or
which is oft wanting, and to be understood in the Hebrew language, as Gen 39:4; Job 41:1; Isa 6:6; according to this translation the fowl have their matter from the water as well as the fishes; which seem most probable, as from this, so also from the following verses, in which they are both mentioned together, as made of the same materials, and as works of the same day, and both are blessed together, and both are distinguished and separated from the production of the earth, which were the works of the sixth day, Gen 1:24, &c. And whereas it is said, Gen 2:19, Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; it may be answered, That the word ground or earth may be there understood more largely, as it is confessedly in some other places of Scripture, for the lower part of the world, consisting of earth and water. For it is most reasonable to expound that short and general passage from the foregoing chapter, wherein the original both of beasts and fowls are largely and distinctly described. Moreover, the fowl seem to have been made of both these elements, viz. of soft and moist earth, possibly taken from the bottom of the water, in which case they were brought forth by the water, as is said here, and formed out of the ground, as there. As Eve is said to be made of Adams bone and rib, Gen 2:21; and of his flesh Gen 1:23. Which shows that with the rib flesh was taken from Adam, though it be not said so, Gen 1:21. So here, the fowl were made both of water and earth, as their temper and constitution shows, though but one of them be here expressed. But these words are by some translated thus,
and let the fowl fly. But according to that translation, the mention of the fowl, both here and in Gen 1:21, seems to be very improper and forced. For it is preposterous, and contrary to the method constantly used in this whole chapter, to speak of the motion of any living creature, and the place thereof, before its original and production be mentioned. Besides, either the original of the fowls is described here, or it is wholly omitted in this chapter, which is not credible.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. moving creaturealloviparous animals, both among the finny and the featherytribesremarkable for their rapid and prodigious increase.
fowlmeans every flyingthing: The word rendered “whales,” includes also sharks,crocodiles, c. so that from the countless shoals of small fish to thegreat sea monsters, from the tiny insect to the king of birds, thewaters and the air were suddenly made to swarm with creatures formedto live and sport in their respective elements.
Ge1:24-31. SIXTH DAY.A farther advance was made by the creation of terrestrial animals,all the various species of which are included in three classes: (1)cattle, the herbivorous kind capable of labor or domestication.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly,…. The waters gathered together in one place, the waters of the ocean, and those in rivers, pools and lakes, and which, before their collection into those places, had been sat on, moved, and impregnated by the Spirit of God; so that they could, as they did, by the divine order accompanied with his power, bring forth abundance of creatures, next mentioned:
the moving creature that hath life: an animal life, of which sort of creatures as yet there had been none made; vegetables, or such as have a vegetative life, were made on the third day; but those that have a sensitive and animal life not till this day, the fifth; and the less perfect, or lower sort of these, were first produced, even such as move or “creep” n, as the word used signifies; which is applied to fishes as well as creeping things, because in swimming their bellies touch the water, and are close to it, as reptiles on the earth: and of these creeping things in the seas there are innumerable, as the Psalmist says, Ps 104:25. Pliny o reckons up an hundred and seventy six kinds of fishes, which he puts in an alphabetical order:
and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven; which according to our version were to be produced out of the waters also; not out of mere water, but out of earth and water mixed together, or out of the earth or clay p that lay at the bottom of the waters: and it may be observed of some fowls, that they live on the waters, and others partly on land and partly on water; and as the elements of fowl and fish, the air and water, bear a resemblance to each other, so do these creatures, some fowls both fly and swim; and what wings are to the one, fins are to the other; and both steer their course by their tails, and are both oviparous: though it should seem, according to Ge 2:19, that the fowls were produced from the earth, and the words may be rendered here, “let the fowl fly above the earth”, c. as they are in the Samaritan and Syriac versions, and in others q.
n “reptile”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus “reptilia”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator. o Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 11. p Vid. T. Bab. Cholin. fol. 27. 2. q “et volatile volet”, Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Amama, “et volatile volitet”, Tigurine version “et volucres volent”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “et aves volent”, Drusius; “et volucris volet”, Cartwrightus; “et avis volitet”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Fifth Day. – “ God said: Let the waters swarm with swarms, with living beings, and let birds fly above the earth in the face (the front, i.e., the side turned towards the earth) of the firmament.” and are imperative. Earlier translators, on the contrary, have rendered the latter as a relative clause, after the of the lxx, “and with birds that fly;” thus making the birds to spring out of the water, in opposition to Gen 2:19. Even with regard to the element out of which the water animals were created the text is silent; for the assertion that is to be understood “with a causative colouring” is erroneous, and is not sustained by Exo 8:3 or Psa 105:30. The construction with the accusative is common to all verbs of multitude. and , to creep and swarm, is applied, “without regard to size, to those animals which congregate together in great numbers, and move about among one another.” , anima viva , living soul, animated beings (vid., Gen 2:7), is in apposition to , “swarms consisting of living beings.” The expression applies not only to fishes, but to all water animals from the greatest to the least, including reptiles, etc. In carrying out His word, God created (Gen 1:21) the great “ tanninim ,” – lit., the long-stretched, from , to stretch-whales, crocodiles, and other sea-monsters; and “ all moving living beings with which the waters swarm after their kind, and all ( every) winged fowl after its kind.” That the water animals and birds of every kind were created on the same day, and before the land animals, cannot be explained on the ground assigned by early writers, that there is a similarity between the air and the water, and a consequent correspondence between the two classes of animals. For in the light of natural history the birds are at all events quite as near to the mammalia as to the fishes; and the supposed resemblance between the fins of fishes and the wings of birds, is counterbalanced by the no less striking resemblance between birds and land animals, viz., that both have feet. The real reason is rather this, that the creation proceeds throughout from the lower to the higher; and in this ascending scale the fishes occupy to a great extent a lower place in the animal economy than birds, and both water animals and birds a lower place than land animals, more especially the mammalia. Again, it is not stated that only a single pair was created of each kind; on the contrary, the words, “let the waters swarm with living beings,” seem rather to indicate that the animals were created, not only in a rich variety of genera and species, but in large numbers of individuals. The fact that but one human being was created at first, by no means warrants the conclusion that the animals were created singly also; for the unity of the human race has a very different signification from that of the so-called animal species. – (Gen 1:22). As animated beings, the water animals and fowls are endowed, through the divine blessing, with the power to be fruitful and multiply. The word of blessing was the actual communication of the capacity to propagate and increase in numbers.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Creation. | B. C. 4004. |
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Each day, hitherto, has produced very noble and excellent beings, which we can never sufficiently admire; but we do not read of the creation of any living creature till the fifth day, of which these verses give us an account. The work of creation not only proceeded gradually from one thing to another, but rose and advanced gradually from that which was less excellent to that which was more so, teaching us to press towards perfection and endeavour that our last works may be our best works. It was on the fifth day that the fish and fowl were created, and both out of the waters. Though there is one kind of flesh of fishes, and another of birds, yet they were made together, and both out of the waters; for the power of the first Cause can produce very different effects from the same second causes. Observe, 1. The making of the fish and fowl, at first, Gen 1:20; Gen 1:21. God commanded them to be produced. He said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly; not as if the waters had any productive power of their own, but, “Let them be brought into being, the fish in the waters and the fowl out of them.” This command he himself executed: God created great whales, c. Insects, which perhaps are as various and as numerous as any species of animals, and their structure as curious, were part of this day’s work, some of them being allied to the fish and others to the fowl. Mr. Boyle (I remember) says he admires the Creator’s wisdom and power as much in an ant as in an elephant. Notice is here taken of the various sorts of fish and fowl, each after their kind, and of the great numbers of both that were produced, for the waters brought forth abundantly and particular mention if made of great whales, the largest of fishes, whose bulk and strength, exceeding that of any other animal, are remarkable proofs of the power and greatness of the Creator. The express notice here taken of the whale, above all the rest, seems sufficient to determine what animal is meant by the Leviathan, Job xli. :1. The curious formation of the bodies of animals, their different sizes, shapes, and natures, with the admirable powers of the sensitive life with which they are endued, when duly considered, serve, not only to silence and shame the objections of atheists and infidels, but to raise high thoughts and high praises of God in pious and devout souls, Ps. civ. 25, c. 2. The blessing of them, in order to their continuance. Life is a wasting thing. Its strength is not the strength of stones. It is a candle that will burn out, if it be not first blown out and therefore the wise Creator not only made the individuals, but provided for the propagation of the several kinds; God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, v. 22. God will bless his own works, and not forsake them; and what he does shall be for a perpetuity, Eccl. iii. 14. The power of God’s providence preserves all things, as at first his creating power produced them. Fruitfulness is the effect of God’s blessing and must be ascribed to it; the multiplying of the fish and fowl, from year to year, is still the fruit of this blessing. Well, let us give to God the glory of the continuance of these creatures to this day for the benefit of man. See Job 12:7; Job 12:9. It is a pity that fishing and fowling, recreations innocent in themselves, should ever be abused to divert any from God and their duty, while they are capable of being improved to lead us to the contemplation of the wisdom, power, and goodness, of him that made all these things, and to engage us to stand in awe of him, as the fish and fowl do of us.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 20-23:
“And God said.” This phrase affirms that all creatures of sea and air came into being by the direct command of God. They did not begin as protoplasm and slowly evolve from one species to another to form the multitude of complex organisms in Nature today.
“Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature.” Literally, “Let the waters swarm with swarmers.” This literal rendering does two things: (1) it affirms that living creatures (as opposed to plants) appeared first in the waters; and (2) it affirms that they were the result of Divine creation, not of evolution from primitive cells in the water.
“That hath life,” nephesh chayyah, a living breath or a breath of life. This distinguishes the sea-creatures from prior creations, particularly vegetation. The life-principle of the animal creation differs from that of the vegetable kingdom. The protoplasmic cells of plants may appear similar to those of animals, but the two are generically different. One never produces the other. Creatures of the animal kingdom have respiratory organs, while plants do not. “Fowl that may fly” is literally, “let winged creatures fly.” This refers to all creatures with wings, capable of raising themselves into the air in the expanse above the earth. One may get the idea from the English translation that these fowl originated in the waters, but this is not true, as Gen 2:19 indicates.
“Great whales,” tanninim, a word used of serpents (Exo 7:9; the crocodile, Eze 29:3), describing huge creatures of the sea in general, both aquatic and amphibian. This describes the first class of the creatures of verse 20. The second is “every living creature which moveth.” The verb “moveth” ramas is “creepeth” and describes all kinds of creeping, wriggling creatures, large or small.
“And God blessed them,” or wished them well, signifying prosperity and abundance. This refers primarily to their propagation and proliferation. This benediction still applies today. It is evident in the short gestation period and the remarkable abundance of offspring of these various creatures.
The science of geology agrees with the Scripture account by confirming that marine animals and fowls preceded land creatures in the origin of life on Earth. Just as God designed, life continues in unbroken succession since He first introduced it on this planet. True science agrees with Scripture regarding God’s creative activities on Day Five.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
20. Let the waters bring forth… the moving creature (74) On the fifth day the birds and fishes are created. The blessing of God is added, that they may of themselves produce offspring. Here is a different kind of propagation from that in herbs and trees: for there the power of fructifying is in the plants, and that of germinating is in the seed; but here generation takes place. It seems, however, but little consonant with reason, that he declares birds to have proceeded from the waters; and, therefore this is seized upon by captious men as an occasion of calumny. But although there should appear no other reason but that it so pleased God, would it not be becoming in us to acquiesce in his judgment? Why should it not be lawful for him, who created the world out of nothing, to bring forth the birds out of water? And what greater absurdity, I pray, has the origin of birds from the water, than that of the light from darkness? Therefore, let those who so arrogantly assail their Creator, look for the Judge who shall reduce them to nothing. Nevertheless if we must use physical reasoning in the contest, we know that the water has greater affinity with the air than the earth has. But Moses ought rather to be listened to as our teacher, who would transport us with admiration of God through the consideration of his works. (75) And, truly, the Lord, although he is the Author of nature, yet by no means has followed nature as his guide in the creation of the world, but has rather chosen to put forth such demonstrations of his power as should constrain us to wonder.
(74) “ Repere faciant aquae reptile animae viventis.” — “Let the waters cause to creep forth the reptile, (or creeping thing,) having a living soul.” This is a more literal translation of the original than that of the English version; yet it does not express more accurately the sense. The word שרף, ( sheretz,) as a substantaive, signifies any worm or reptile, generally of the smaller kind, either in land or water; and the corresponding verb rendered “to creep forthe” signifies also “to multiply.” It is well known that this class of animals multiply more abundantly than any other. The expression נפש חיה, ( nepesh chayah,) “a living soul,” does not refer (as the word soul in English often does) to the immortal principle, but to the animal life or breath, and the words might here be rendered “the breath of life.” — Ed
(75) For other opinions respecting the origin of birds, see Poole’s Synopsis. Some argue from Gen 2:19, that fowls were made of the earth; and would propose an alteration in the translation of the verse before us to the following effect, — “and let the fowl fly above the heaven.” — See Notes on Genesis, etc., by Professor Bush, in loco. But Calvin’s view is more generally approved. “ Natantium et volatilium unam originem ponit Moses. 1. Quia aer, (locus avium,) et aqua, (locus piscium,) elementa cognata sunt,” etc. — Castalio, Lyra, Menochius, and others, in Poole. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 1:20. Creature] Here, and in Gen. 1:21; Gen. 1:24, creature stands for Heb. nephesh (Sept. psych), and in Gen. 1:30 wherein is life is, more exactly, wherein is a nephesh of life. If our Eng. soul cannot be expanded so as to cover the biblical usage of nephesh and psyche, the next best thing might be to adopt psyche, psychical, at least in private and expository discourse. According to 1 Corinthians 15, Adam was a psychical man, and this death-doomed body is a psychical body. Cf. C. N. on ch. Gen. 2:7.
Gen. 1:21. Whales] Heb. tannin: prop. a long creature (Ges. Dav.) wh. winds or twists itself, or stretches itself along (Frst). The use of this word in O.T. is remarkable: only in Job. 7:12 is it elsewhere in C. V. rendered whale: in Exo. 7:9-10; Exo. 7:12, it is serpent; in Deu. 32:33; Neh. 2:13; Psa. 74:13; Psa. 91:13; Psa. 148:7; Is. 27:1; 51:9; Jer. 51:34, dragon; and in Lam. 4:3, sea-monster. These are all its occurrences.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 1:20-23
FISH AND FOWL
I. That life is the immediate creation of God. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life. &c. Here we get sublime teaching in reference to the origin of life.
1. It was not an education. It was not evoked from anything that had previously existed. It was not an emanation from some elementary principle or form of matter. It was not an unconscious development. Life bounded into existence at the call of God, and kindled its lights in the lower realms of nature, that ultimately it might shine resplendent, and find its highest perfection and beauty in the being and soul of man. Life as an education is the foolish conceit of a sceptical philosophy.
2. It was not the result of combination. Prior to the existence of fish and fowl; there had been created the land, the light, the water, and the heavenly bodies had received their commission to illumine the universe. But life was not awakened by the combined agency of any of these. They were without life. The light might fall upon the great world uninhabited, but its ray could not evoke one note of life, or give impulse to the smallest object on which it fell. Matter is capable of many pleasing and useful combinations, but has inherently no life-producing property.
3. It was a miraculous gift. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. There are two words in this sentence that should be remembered, and joined together most closely, they are God and life. This should be so in the external universe, for if God were to withdraw from it, its whole frame would crumble into dust. This should be so in the soul of man, as God is the source of its true and higher life. If the church were to remember the connexion of these two great words, she would be much more powerful in her toil. Life was at first the miraculous gift of God. Its continuance is His gift. It is the product of His voice. This is true of all in whom the spark of life is kindled, whether seraph or brute.
II. That life is varied in its manifestation and capability.
1. Life is varied in its manifestations. There were created on this day both fish and fowl. God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. Thus life is not a monotony. It assumes different forms. It gives varied impulses. It grows in different directions. It has several kingdoms. It has numerous conditions of growth.
2. Life is varied in its capability. As life is varied in its kind and growth, so is it in its capability. The fish swim in the water. The fowls fly in the air; the abilities and endowments of each are distinct and varied. They answer different purposes. Each takes a part in the great ministry of the universe. The whole in harmony is the joy of man. Envy is unknown in the lower region of life.
3. Life is abundant and rich in its source. The waters brought forth abundantly. There was no lack of life-giving energy on the part of God. Its source was smitten, and life streamed forth in rich abundance. The world is crowded with life. It will not soon become extinct. Its supplies will not soon be exhausted. The universe will not soon become a grave, for even in death there is life, hidden but effective to a new harvest.
4. Life is good in its design. God saw that it was good. All life is good in its original intention. It was good as the gift of God, and as the glory of its possessor.
III. That the lower spheres of life are richly endowed with the Divine Blessing. The blessing is from God. The truest source of benediction. The highest hope of man. The richest heritage of nature. It had its earnest in the life then commenced. The fish and fowl then created were prophetic of future blessing.
1. It was the blessing of increasing Numbers
2. It was the blessing of an extended occupation of the land and sea.
3. Let us always remember that the blessing of God rests upon the lower spheres of life.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 1:20. The decree.
2. The order.
3. The manner.
4. The kinds.
5. The places.
6. The blessing.
God leaves nothing empty that he hath made, but furnisheth all with His store and riches. Thus when He had created the heavens, He furnished them with stars, the air with birds, the water with fishes, and the earth with herbs, and plants, and afterwards with beasts and men; so that the earth is full of His riches, and so is the wide sea.
1. Then will God leave His children empty, the vessels which He hath formed for Himself?
2. Let men be ashamed that delight in empty houses, or lands unpeopled, that they may dwell alone.
3. We cannot but admire the affluent power of God.
God disposeth all creatures, in such places, as are most convenient unto them. He fixes the stars in the heavens, carries the clouds in the air, appoints the waters for the fishes.
1. Let us seek places suited to our disposition and temper.
2. Let us comfort ourselves in reference to our heavenly home, in that it will be suited to our condition.
Life is the gift of God alone.
1. Because God only hath life.
2. That it may be at His disposal.
3. That He may be praised for it.
1. Let every man be careful to preserve in any creature so precious a gift
2. Let every man glorify God in whose hand his breath is.
3. Let it teach us to abase all mans work in comparison with Gods. Men can make pictures and statutes, but cannot give them breath.
The variety and diversity of Gods works is infinite.
The motion as well as the being of every creature is ordered and limited by the will and decree of God.
All these creatures were at first produced in full strength for motion.
The water for fish, and the expanse over the earth for fowl, are places of sustentation.
Gen. 1:21. The eminency of any creature ought especially to be observed for magnifying the work of the Creator.
1. The great lights.
2. The great whales.
3. After Gods image.
God furnisheth every creature with parts and abilities, needful for the nature of it, and use, to which He hath assigned it.
God respects and takes special notice of all, even the meanest of the works that He hath made.
1. Let the poorest and most neglected of men trust the providence of God.
2. Let the richest stoop to the poor.
Even the meanest of the creatures that God hath made are good.
(1.) As the effects of His power.
(2.) As they serve His glory.
(3.) As they are useful to man.
(4.) Let us do nothing but that which we can approve.
Gen. 1:22-23. Fruitfulness is a blessing bestowed only by God Himself.
1. Seek it by prayer.
2. Expect it by faith.
3. Wait for it in obedience.
4. Receive it with praise.
There is nothing so vast or wide but God can easily furnish and fill it at His pleasure.
Gods blessing in creation makes these creatures abundant now.
Every fish and bird is a demonstration of Gods wisdom, and power and goodness.
SUGGESTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
Animal Life! Gen. 1:20. There is a meaning in these words which is seldom noticed: for innumerable millions of animalcul are found in water. Eminent naturalists have discovered no less than 30,000 in a single drop. How inconceivably small, remarks Professor Green, must each be; and yet each a perfect animalfurnished with the whole apparatus of bones, muscles, nerves, lungs, etc. What a proof is this of the manifold wisdom of God! If we pluck a flower from the garden on which rests the glistening dewdrop; if we sink our finger in a pond, and then examine with a microscope, we shall find worlds living and moving in its drops; if we sail on the ocean at midnight, our vessel may be enveloped in a flame of bright phosphorescent light, and gleaming with a greenish lustreattributable to the presence of innumerable multitudes of animals floating on the waves:
Flashd the dipt oars, and, sparkling with the stroke,
Around the waves phosphoric brightness broke.Byron.
Mr. Charles Darwin paints in vivid colours the magnificent spectacle presented by the sea, while sailing in the latitudes of Cape Horn on a dark night. It is now no longer a matter of doubt that many of the inferior marine animals possess the faculty of secreting a luminous matter. And when we consider their countless numbers, we need not wonder at the magnificent effects produced by such tiny creatures, whose
Vivid light
To the dark billows of the night,
A blooming splendour give.Scott.
Birds! Gen. 1:21. A little bird alighted at sunset on the bough of a pear tree that grew in Luthers garden. Luther looked upon it, and said, That little bird covers its head with its wings, and will sleep there, so still and fearless, though over it are the infinite starry spaces, and the great blue depths of immensity; yet it fears not; it is at home; the God that made it, too, is there.
There sitteth a dove so white and fair,
All on the lily spray,
And she listeneth when to our Saviour dear
The little children pray.Bremer.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Day Five: the Water and Air Species (Gen. 1:20-23)
And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
1. We have here the account of the beginnings of animal life, in the aquatic and aerial species. Did animal life appear first in the water? Evidently so, as air-breathing animals could hardly have lived until the atmosphere had been purified. Water animals must have preceded all other kinds in the Creation. It is a commonplace, of course, of present-day biology that animal life began in the water, and that flying reptiles which lived in the water and required but little oxygen, were probably the precursors of birds.
2. Gen. 1:20let the waters swarm, etc. That is to say, the seas were to be filled with creatures adapted to marine life, each species capable of reproducing its own kind prolifically. Note also Gen. 2:19Does this mean that the bodies of marine animals are of a different texture than those of birds and beasts? Whatever it means, it is made clear that the life principle was inherent in every individual of every kind (species) of both water and air creatures. These are here differentiated from all previous creations, and from vegetation in particular, by their possession of this vital spark. Butdoes not this contradict the fact that plants are also living organisms? It does not. It simply bears out the well-known fact that the life processes of animal cells are different from those of plant cells (as stated heretofore, the latter are specifically characterized by their possession of chlorophyll and by their unique activity of photosynthesis). Whitelaw (PCG, 25): It may be impossible by the most microscopic analysis to differentiate the protoplasmic cell of vegetable matter from that of animal organisms, and plants may appear to be possessed of functions that resemble those of animals, yet the two are generically differentvegetable protoplasm never weaving animal texture, and plant fibre never issuing from the loom of animal protoplasm. That which constitutes an animal is the possession of respiratory organs, to which, doubtless, there is a reference in the term nephesh, from naphash, to breathe Lange (CDHCG, 171): The creation of marine animals begins first. It is not only because they are the most imperfect creatures, but because the water is a more quickening and a more primitive conditioning of life than the earth. The like holds true of the air.
3. Gen. 1:21And God created . . . every living creature that moveth (A.S.V.) The moving creature that hath life (A.V.) R.S.V.every living creature that moves, from ramas, meaning move, creep, etc.the term remes being especially descriptive of creeping animals, either on land, or in water (Gen. 9:2; Gen. 7:14; Psa. 69:34). Does this mean that insects also came into existence at this stage? Or are these to be included among the creeping things named in Gen. 1:24? We cannot be certain about this. One fact, however, is obvious, namely, that the appearance of the power of locomotion is emphasized here as the significant characteristic of the life process at this stage. Human experience proves that animal life is specified (distinguished from plant life) by the power of sensitivity (sensations are the sources of consciousness) and locomotion. (See infra, Aristotles Hierarchy of Being.) Lange (CDHCG, 172): It suits well the fifth day, or the number five, that the symbols of mightiest life-motion, the fishes and the birds, are created on this day. The animals of lesser physical motion, but of more intensive individual sensation, come after them.
4. Gen. 1:22. In the case of plants, their reproductive powers are included in their creation. Here, however, the first living animal forms are endowed with the right of self-propagation by a separate acta Divine benediction. In Scripture, as in nature, fish are assigned to water, birds to the heaven (sky, air), and beasts to the earth. In a later verse, we shall see that mans lord tenancy over all these forms, indeed over the whole earth, is ordained by the Creator.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
PART SEVEN: THE LAST THREE DAYS OF THE COSMIC WEEK OF BEGINNINGS
Gen. 1:20-31
The heart of the Genesis Cosmogony is that all things have been brought into existence by the Supreme Creative Will, acting either directly (primary causation) or through the agency of forces and materials of His own creation (secondary causation). God created, God said, God called, God saw, God made, God blessed, etc. The name of God, Elohim, occurs forty-six times in the first two chapters of Genesis. The facts that God wills it means that He is Absolute Sovereign over what He has created; that He rules, determines, and brings to their pre-determined ends all the ages (Isa. 44:6); that He is sovereign over all aspects of the cosmos, including life, man, society, peoples, and even the destinies of individuals and nations (Act. 17:24-28, Jer. 18:5-10). God before all, God back of all, God over all: Gods creative Word is the Efficient Cause of the existence, and continuance in existence, of all things. God Himself is without beginning or end, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Self-existent Living One.
Every process of the cosmos is divinely willed; every good end is divinely designed and ordained. Hence the living and true God is personalan Other to all other persons. He is the sovereign God, transcending the cosmos and independent of it. He is the personal, sovereign, rational and moral Divine Being. He is over all, and through all, and in all (Eph. 4:6). There is not the slightest room here for pantheism or deism. This is theism in its most exalted form. Deu. 6:4Yahweh our God is one Yahweh, that is, the only Yahweh (I AM, Exo. 3:14). I am God, and there is none like me (Isa. 46:9). I am the first, and I am the last: and besides me there is no God (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 1:8; Rev. 1:17-18). This is monotheism of the highest order.
The sublime facts to which the Genesis account of the Creation points directly is that the Eternal God, who is Spirit (Joh. 4:24), is the God of creation, of revelation, of conscience, of judgment, of redemption, of the ultimate restoration of all things (Act. 3:21).
When Elohim began the Creation, He made things, one might well say, in the rough. He created the heavens and the earththe ancient Hebrew way of saying the entire cosmos. The Spirit of God moved in the darkness of the great deep, preparing it for all that was to follow. One basic truth of the entire Genesis account is that in the six great days of creative activity, this activity pointed unfailingly to the crown of the Divine handiwork, man; in them all things necessary to human existence were marvelously wrought. How long it was from the first stirring in the primordial deep until God said, Let us make man in our image, we do not know. We can readily see, however, that the account allows for the vast ages, and the processes taking shape throughout, as envisioned by present-day geological science.
Perhaps it should be added here, parenthetically, that the geological theory of uniformitarianism, namely, that early geological processes were the same as those now empirically discernible (or, as Hutton put it, that the present is the key to the past, and that, if given sufficient vastness of time, the processes now at work could have produced all the geological features of our planet) simply could not apply, in any great detail, to the first beginnings of the lands and seas that go to make up our earth. It seems obvious that the elements had to be brought into existence in their proper interrelationships in order to effect planetary beginnings and to establish the more advanced planetary processes and changes.
As we have noted, Day One of the Hebrew Cosmogony witnessed the first manifestations of energy, of matter-in-motion, and the creation of light. On Day Two the firmament was brought into being, giving us such necessities of human existence, as the surface waters, the intervening atmosphere, and the sky above with its clouds. On Day Three, earth and water, apparently one conglomerate mass up to this point, became separated, so that the earth took its proper form, with continents and seas being formed, and with vegetation beginning to clothe the hitherto bare land. On Day Four it seems that the vapors enveloping the newly formed planet were gradually dissipated, so that sun, moon and stars became visible, to be divinely appointed as standards for human measurement of time. Cornfeld (AtD, 5): Thus God made the worlds time, which is the framework of history, for He is the Lord of history.
Throughout the rest of the Genesis Cosmogony, the writer, while noting that there are divinely graded kinds of living beings, puts supreme emphasis on the moral and spiritual character of the cosmos, and its dependence upon its Creator (God saw that it was good, Gen. 1:4; Gen. 1:10; Gen. 1:12; Gen. 1:18; Gen. 1:21, etc.) and especially upon the towering significance of man as a moral agent and the lord tenant of the whole Creation.
It seems significant indeed that in Gen. 1:21, we find the Hebrew verb bara used the second time (cf. Gen. 1:1) in the account of the Creation. We have noted heretofore that this verb denotes a real primary beginning: it means that something new, some new increment of power, is being introduced into the creative process. Hence, we find in the section we now take up (Gen. 1:20-23) the account of the advance from the unconscious being of the plant to the conscious being of the animal, the awareness that comes from sense-perception and locomotion, the powers that specify the entire animal creation. Because of this fact, I have chosen to make this the breaking point between the two sections of the Creation narrative.
REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART SEVEN
1.
What is said, in this text, to be the heart of the Genesis Cosmogony?
2.
Distinguish between primary and secondary causes.
3.
Cite Scriptures which teach theism and monotheism in their purest forms.
4.
What is the theory of imiformitarianism? Why is this theory not applicable to the creation of lands and seas?
5.
Review what happened on Days One, Two, Three, and Four of the Creative Week.
6.
What was created on Day Five?
7.
What advance in the Creation is indicated in Gen. 1:20-23?
8.
According to Genesis in what environment did animal life begin? What does biology teach about this?
9.
On what ground does Lange account for the beginning of animal life in the water and in the air?
10.
What are the two characteristics in particular which distinguish animal life from plant life?
11.
List the principal events of Day Six of the Creation.
12.
Explain the import of the metaphor, River of Life.
13.
Explain what is meant by the mystery of the Life Movement.
14.
Name and define the cellular processes.
15.
List Skinners threefold classification of animals.
16.
What are the two naturalistic theories of the Origin of Life?
17.
Explain what is meant by abiogenesis. How did the Church Fathers regard this theory? What is the status of the theory today?
18.
State Augustines theory of seminal reasons (seminal causes).
19.
Explain what is meant by the Will to Live.
20.
State clearly Aristotles theory of the Hierarchy of Being.
21.
What particular still unsolved problems are pointed up by Aristotles theory?
22.
What was the Great Chain of Being theory? In what great poem is it set forth?
23.
What change in the formula of the Divine decree occurs in Gen. 1:26? What does this change emphasize?
24.
State the theories of Creation suggested, by Cuvier and Lotze.
25.
What theories have been suggested as explanations of the us in Gen. 1:26?
26.
What is the only explanation of the us which harmonizes with the teaching of the Bible as a whole?
27
What is the special significance of the credo of Deu. 6:4?
28.
By what Names is the tripersonality of God indicated in the Old Testament? What is the full revelation of these Names as given in the New Testament?
29.
What is the significance of the use of the verb bara in Gen. 1:27?
30.
What is the meaning of the term, creation absolute?
31.
What are the phenomena which mark off the successive levels in the Totality of Being?
32.
What is the significance of the metaphor, the Breath of Life?
33.
What is the special import of Gods very good in Gen. 1:31?
34.
Why cannot the terms image and likeness of God refer to corporeal likeness?
35.
What is, in all likelihood, the specific import of the phrase, image of God, as descriptive of man?
36.
In what special sense was Jesus the very image of God?
37.
Does the phrase image of God indicate that man is in some sense deity?
38.
In what sense is man the representation of God in the Creation?
39.
What special significance has personality with reference to God?
40.
What is the significance of the distinction between the Oriental doctrine of absorption, and the Biblical doctrine of fellowship, as the destiny of the person? Which of these is the doctrine of personal immortality?
41.
What is the import of the terms male and female as used in Gen. 1:27?
42.
What was the twofold Divine blessing pronounced upon mankind at the beginning (Gen. 1:28)?
43.
What evidence have we that God does not look with favor on concentration of population?
44.
What is meant by the statement that God vested man with lord tenancy over the whole of nature?
45.
How is this lord tenancy connected with mans stewardship?
46.
What are the three categories of truth?
47.
On what ground do we assert that human science is the fulfilment of Gods command that man should multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it?
48.
By what five fundamental truths does the Genesis Cosmogony affirm the glory and dignity of the person?
49.
What reasons do we have for asserting that all subhuman orders were created for mans use and benefit?
50.
What general objections to this view are urged by skeptics?
51.
Would you not agree that if our conviction is not true (that the world was created for mans use and benefit), the only alternative view would have to be that all existence is meaningless? Explain your answer.
52.
Restate the argument presented herein, in answer to the question, Why a Creation at all?
53.
Explain the significance of the teaching of Jesus in Mat. 25:41.
54.
Would you say that Gen. 1:29-30 indicates that God originally intended only a vegetable diet for man?
55.
What conclusion do you reach by comparing these verses with Gen. 9:3?
56.
What is the meaning of good as used in these verses?
57.
What is the special significance of Gods very good in Gen. 1:31?
58.
State the various explanations of the Scripture which tells us that God finished his work on Day Seven.
59.
In what sense, evidently, did God rest on Day Seven?
60.
What is the probable significance of the absence of the customary formula (used in preceding verses to indicate the termination of each Days activity) from the story of Day Seven?
61.
How do the words of Jesus in Joh. 5:17 throw light on this problem of Gods rest?
62.
What is a prolepsis? Cite Scripture examples of prolepsis.
63.
Show how Gen. 2:2-3 is obviously a case of prolepsis.
64.
What is the reason given for Gods hallowing of the seventh day of the week instead of some other day?
65.
What special event was the Jewish Sabbath appointed to memorialize (according to Deu. 5:15)?
66.
Where in the Pentateuch do we find the account of the first observance of the Jewish Sabbath?
67.
Explain the significance of the sequence of events of the eight-day period described in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus.
68.
Why, evidently, do we find no record of the observance of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis?
69.
Why does the Sabbath have no significance for Christians?
70.
What day do Christians observe and why? What is it called in Scripture?
71.
What analogies exist between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lords Day?
72.
Summarize the arguments for the general interpretation that Day Seven of the Creative Week is one of indefinite duration.
73.
Show how Tayler Lewis correlates the language of the Fourth Commandment with this interpretation.
74.
Show how Whitelaw effects the same correlation. Cf. Rotherhams view (as given earlier in this text) and that of Archer (as stated directly above).
75.
List other evidences of the ambiguous use of the Hebrew yom throughout the Old Testament.
76.
Show how Gen. 1:31 sets the optimistic motif which runs throughout the entire Bible.
77.
List the correspondences between the Hebrew Cosmogony and present-day science.
78.
Explain how this correspondence is especially true of the order of Creation as given in Genesis and as held by the most recent science.
79.
What bearing do these facts have on the doctrine of the special Divine inspiration of the Genesis Narrative of the Creation?
80.
Show how the Order of the Creation as given in Genesis harmonizes also with the facts of human experience.
81.
Restate our objections to the reconstruction and cyclical theories, respectively, of the cosmos as applied to the Genesis Cosmogony.
82.
Explain what is meant by plant photosynthesis and why the process is of such great importance.
83.
Review the general Order of the Creation, Day by Day, as set forth in Genesis 1.
84.
What is the special significance of this Order? To what does it necessarily point?
85.
Explain the difference between theoretical atheism and agnosticism. Is there any practical difference between the two views?
86.
What is pantheism, and what are the main objections to it?
87.
Define deism, and state the objections to it.
88.
Define materialism and state the objections to it.
89.
Define dualism and state the objections to it.
90.
Explain what is meant by emanationism. State the objections to it.
91.
What, in a general sense, is naturalism?
92.
Distinguish between humanitarian humanism, egoistic humanism, and Biblical humanism.
93.
Define polytheism. What was its most fundamental characteristic?
94.
Define monotheism. How is it related to monism?
95.
Define henotheism.
96.
State the fundamental characteristics of theism. What are the chief attributes of the Biblical theistic God?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(20) Let the waters . . . in the open firmament.The days of the second creative triad correspond to those of the first. Light was created on the first day, and on the fourth it was gathered into light-bearers; on the second day air and water were called into being, and on the fifth day they were peopled with life; lastly, on the third day the dry land appeared, and on the sixth day it became the home of animals and man.
Bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.Literally, let the waters swarm a swarm of living soul. But the word soul properly signifies breath, and thus, after the long pause of the fourth day, during which vegetation was advancing under the ripening effects of solar heat, we now hasten onward to another creative act, by which God called into being creatures which live by breathing. And as vegetation began with a green tinge upon the rocks, so doubtless animal life began in the most rudimentary manner, and advanced through animalcules and insects up to fish and reptiles. The main point noticed in the text as to the living things produced on this day is their fecundity. They are all those creatures which multiply in masses. It does not, however, follow that the highest forms of fish and reptiles were reached before the lowest form of land animal was created. All that we are taught is that the Infusoria and Ovipara preceded the Mammalia. As the most perfect trees may not have been produced till the Garden of Eden was planted, so the peacock may not have spread his gaudy plumes till the time was approaching when there would be human eyes capable of admiring his beauty.
And fowl that may fly.Heb., and let fowl, or winged creatures, fly above the earth. It does not say that they were formed out of the water (comp. Gen. 2:19). Nor is it confined to birds, but includes all creatures that can wing their way in the air.
In the open firmament.Literally, upon the face of the expanse of heaventhat is, in front of it, upon the lower surface of the atmosphere near to the earth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
FIFTH DAY FISH AND FOWLS, Gen 1:20-23.
20. Bring forth abundantly Hebrews, Let the waters teem with creeping things, living beings . , soul of life, or living soul, is in apposition with , creeping thing . These crawlers, or creeping things, are meant to include “whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas . ” , and let fowls fly . In Gen 2:19, the fowls are said to be formed out of the ground . All these creatures were first introduced by God’s word . They were creations, not evolutions . But their subsequent multiplication is conceived of as generations .
‘And God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and let birds fly above the earth on the face of the expanse of the heaven”. And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning a fifth day.’
We note here a remarkable fact. Firstly that God commanded the creatures to be ‘bought forth’ by the waters, and secondly that He ‘created’ them. Thus there would appear to be a twofold process. The first, adaptation from what was in the waters, the second, creation of something from nothing. The creatures are to be seen as a part of that from which they come, and yet also to be seen as being distinctive. Thus the life of living creatures is distinguished from plant life. It is new and unique. They receive their life from God. As with the vegetation God determines that there will be many ‘kinds’ so as to provide diversity. These ‘kinds’ are the result of God’s activity.
“Living creatures” – nephesh chayah. The word nephesh comes from Akkadian ‘napishtu’ where it meant throat. That is where the breath was seen as coming from and thus it developed to mean the life within and ‘alive’, thus ‘living things’ The whole phrase therefore means ‘living things that have life’.
“The great sea monsters”. The writer was aware, as all men were, of huge creatures in the sea. To many they must have seemed terrifying. But he knew that they were creatures of God. Many ancient myths spoke of semi-divine sea monsters (tannin) who caused distress and chaos, (and the Psalmists use the ideas pictorially to demonstrate God’s control over creation), but the writer wants it to be clear that they are no such thing. They are made by God and they are under His control and will.
“Brought forth abundantly” from the root ‘to swarm’, thus things which appear in swarms. The waters were filled with swarming things.
“And every winged bird.” First the fish and then the birds. These filled the waters and the area under the firmament (Gen 1:7).
“And God saw that it was good.” This brings out God’s personal interest in what He has produced. He is, as it were, making sure that the world into which man will come is a good place for him to be. Yes, even the sea-monsters are good in His eyes. They are no enemy to Him.
Then God blesses the creatures. Again this is new, stressing that a new distinctive beginning has been achieved. The vegetation was not ‘blessed’. The heavenly lights were not blessed. The creatures are seen as in some special way distinctive and personal. The main blessing is that those who have received life can pass on life. They can be fruitful, and multiply. Sexual functions, rightly used, are blessed by God to the furtherance of life. A clear distinction is made between animate life and inanimate life. Animism, the belief that inanimate objects have souls, is here rejected by God. Such objects are not ‘blessed’ for they have no ‘life’.
The Fifth Day of Creation Gen 1:20-23 gives us the account of the fifth day of Creation. On the fifth day of creation God made the great creatures of the sea, the fish and the birds of the air.
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 Gen 1:22 Gen 1:23 Gen 1:23 Mat 6:34, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
The Creation of Marine Animals and Birds
v. 20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. v. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God saw that it was good. v. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. v. 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. EXPOSITION
Gen 1:20
Day five.
The waters and the air, separated on the second day, are on this filled with their respective inhabitants. And God said. Nature never makes an onward movement, in the sense of an absolutely new departure, unless under the impulse of the word of Elohim. These words distinctly claim that the creatures of the sea and of the air, even if evolved from material elements, were produced in obedience to Divine command, and not spontaneously generated by the potentia vitae of either land, sea, or sky. Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature. Literally, swarm with swarmers, or crawl with crawlers. The fundamental signification of sharatz is to creep or swarm, and hence to multiply (Gesenius); or, vice versa, to multiply in masses, and hence to swarm or abound (Furst; of. Gen 8:17; Exo 1:7; Exo 8:3). The sheretzim, though including small aquatic creatures that have short or no legs, are obviously “all kinds of living creatures inhabiting either land or water which are oviparous and remarkable for fecundity” (Bush). We may, therefore, understand the creative fiat of the fifth day as summoning first into existence the insect creation (in Le Gen 11:20-23 defined as flying sheretzim), the fishes of the sea (sheretzim of the waters, Le Gen 11:9, Gen 11:10), and the reptiles and saurians of sea and land (sheretzim of the land, Le 11:41, 42). Dawson concludes that “the prolific animals of the fifth day’s creation belonged to the three Cuvierian sub-kingdoms of the radiata articulata, mollusca, and to the classes of fish and reptiles among the vertebrata. That hath life. Nephesh chayyah; literally, a living breath. Here the creatures of the sea are distinguished from all previous creations, and in particular from vegetation, as being possessed of a vital principle. This does not, of course, contradict the well-known truth that plants are living organisms. Only the life principle of the animal creation is different from that of the vegetable kingdom. It may be impossible by the most acute microscopic analysis to differentiate the protoplasmic cell of vegetable matter from that of animal organisms, and plants may appear to be possessed of functions that resemble those of animals, yet the two are generically differentvegetable protoplasm never weaving animal texture, and plant fiber never issuing from the loom of animal protoplasm. That which constitutes an animal is the possession of respiratory organs, to which, doubtless. there is a reference in the term nephesh from naphash, to breathe. And fowl that may fly. Literally, let “winged creatures” fly. The fowls include all tribes covered with feathers that can raise themselves hate the air. The English version produces the impression that they were made from the waters, which is contrary to Gen 2:19. The correct rendering disposes of the difficulty. Above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Not above the firmament like the clouds (Von Bohlen, Baumgarten), but in the concave vault (Tuch, Delitzsch), or before the surface of the expanse (Kalisch).
Gen 1:21
And God created (bara, is in Gen 1:1, to indicate the introduction of an absolutely new thing, viz; the principle of animal life) great whales. Tanninim, from tanan; Greek, ; Latin, tendo; Sansc; tan, to stretch. These were the first of the two classes into which the sheretzim of the previous verse were divided. The word is used of serpents (Exo 7:9; Deu 32:33; Psa 91:13; Jer 51:34), of the crocodile (Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2), and may therefore here describe “great sea monsters” in general: (LXX.); “monstrous crawlers that wriggle through the water or scud along the banks (Murphy); whales, crocodiles, and other sea monsters (Delitzsch); gigantic aquatic and amphibious reptiles (Kalisch, Macdonald). And every living creature (nephesh chayyah) which moveth. Literally, the moving, from ramas, to move or creep. This is the second class of sheretzim. The term remes is specially descriptive. of creeping animals (Gen 9:2), either on land (Gen 7:14) or in water (Psa 69:35), though here it clearly signifies aquatic tribes. Which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind. The generic terms are thus seen to include many distinct orders and species, created each after its kind. And every winged fowl after his kind. Why fowls and fish were created on the same day is rot to be explained by any supposed similarity between the air and the water
. In the case of God blessing inanimate things, it signifies to make them to prosper and be abundant (Exo 23:25; Job 1:10; Psa 65:11). The nature of the blessing pronounced upon the animal creation had reference to their propagation and increase. Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. The paronomastic combination, be fruitful and multiply, became a regular formula of blessing (cf. Gen 24:60; Gen 35:11; Gen 48:4; Psa 128:3, Psa 128:4). The Divine benediction was not simply a wish; but, adds Calvin, “by the bare intimation of his purpose he effects what men seek by entreaty.” Nor was it meaningless that the words of benediction were addressed to the creatures; it was designed to teach that the “force of the Divine word was not meant to be transient, but, being infused into their natures, to take root and constantly bear fruit” (Calvin).
Gen 1:23
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. If of the previous creative days geological science has only doubtful traces, of this it bears irrefragable witness. When the first animal life was Introduced upon our globe may be said to be as yet sub judice. Principal Dawson inclines to claim for the gigantic foraminifer, eozoon canadense, of the Laurentian rocks, the honor of being one of the first aquatic creatures that swarmed in terrestrial waters, though Professor Huxley believes that the earliest life is not represented by the oldest known fossils; but, whether then or at some point of time anterior introduced, geology can trace it upwards through the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras with the result that is here so exactly defined. Throughout the long ages that fill the interval between the Azoic period of our earth’s history and that which witnessed the appearance of the higher animals she is able to detect an unbroken succession of aquatic life, rising gradually from lower to higher formsfrom the trilobites and mollusks of the Cambrian and Silurian systems, up through the ganoid fishes of the Devonian and the amphibians of the Carboniferous to the saurian reptiles of the Permian periods. At this point certain ornithic tracks in the superincumbent Triassic strata reveal the introduction upon the scene of winged creatures, and with this accession to its strength and Volume the stream of life flows on till the higher animals appear. Thus geology confirms the Scripture record y attesting
(1) the priority of marine animals and birds to land animals;
(2) the existence of a period when the great sea monsters, with the smaller aquatic tribes and winged fowls of the air, were the sole living creatures on the globe; and
(3) that, precisely as Elohim designed life has continued in unbroken succession since the time of its first introduction. It may also be noted that the Palaeontological history of the earth’s crust suggests a number of considerations that enable us to form a conception of the fifth day’s work, which, though not contravened by the Mosaic narrative, is yet by it not explicitly disclosed. For example, whereas it might seem to be the teaching of the inspired writer that the tanninim, the tomes, and the birds were created simultaneously, and so were synchronous in their appearance, the testimony of the rocks rather points to a series of creative acts in which successive species of living creatures were summoned into being, as the necessary conditions of existence were prepared for their reception, and indeed with emphasis asserts that the order of creation was not, as in Gen 1:21, first the great sea monsters, and then the creepers, and then the birds; but first the smaller aquatic tribes, and then the monsters of the deep, and finally the winged creatures of the air. This, however, is not to contradict, but to elucidate, the word of God.
HOMILETICS
Gen 1:20-22
The mystery of life.
I. ITS ORIGIN.
1. Not dead matter. Scripture, equally with science, represents life as having a physical basis; but, unlike modern evolutionists, never confounds vital force with the material mechanism in which it resides, and through which it operates. Advanced biologists account for life by molecular arrangement, chemical combination, spontaneous generation, or some such equally insufficient hypothesis. The rigorous necessities of truth and logic, however, compel them to admit that neither the action of material forces nor the ingenuity of man has been able to produce a bioplasmic cell. “The chasm between the not living and the living the present state of knowledge cannot bridge” (Huxley). “Most naturalists of our time have given up the attempt to account for the origin of life by natural causes “(Haeckel). But
2. The living God. All existing life has proceeded from some antecedent life, is the latest verdict of biological science. Every bioplast has been produced by a previous bioplast: omnis cellula e cellula. Essentially that is the teaching of revelation. The Maker of the first bioplast was God. If the present narrative appears to recognize the doctrine of mediate creation by saying, “Let the waters bring forth,” “Let the earth bring forth,” it is careful to affirm that, in so far as material forces contributed to the production of life, they were directly impelled thereto, and energized therefore, by the creative word. The hypothesis that matter was originally possessed of, or endowed with, “the potency of life” (Tyndall) is expressly negative by Gen 1:21, which represents life as the immediate creation of Elohim.
II. ITS NATURE. Scripture vouchsafes no information as to what constitutes the vis viva of organized beings. Beyond characterizing the beings themselves as “living creatures.” it leaves the subject wrapped in profoundest mystery. And the veil of that mystery science has not been able to penetrate. The microscope has indeed conclusively shown that living matter, or bioplasm, is that which weaves the endlessly varied structures of animal forms; but as to what that is which imparts to the transparent, structureless, albuminous fluid, called bioplasm, the power of self-multiplication and organization it is silent. “We fail to detect any organization in the bioplasmic mass, but there are movements in it and life” (Huxley). The utmost that science can give as its definition of life is, “that which originates and directs the movements of bioplasm” (cf. ‘Beale on Protoplasm;’ Cook’s ‘Lectures on Biology’). Scripture advances a step beyond science, and affirms that life in its last analysis is the power of God (Psa 104:30; Isa 38:16).
III. ITS MANIFESTATION.
1. Abundant. The creatures of the sea were produced in swarms, and probably the birds appeared in flocks. This was
(1) Predictive of their natures as gregarious animals. Though afterwards prolific, they might have been created in small numbers; but, as if to maintain a correspondence between the characteristic properties of the creatures and their first production, they were made, the fish in shoals, the fowl in breeds.
(2) Expressive of the Creator’s joy. God finds a part of His happiness in surrounding himself with living creatures. Had there been no other end to serve by the fish and fowl of the fifth day, this would have been cause sufficient for their creation.
(3) Anticipative of man’s arrival on the scene. Not only was it a step in advance on the work of the previous day, and as such preliminary to the advent of man, but the aquatic and aerial creatures were designed to be subservient to man’s needs and uses.
2. Varied.
(1) In its form. The living creatures of the fifth day were diverse in their physical structures. Though in the initial stages of their embryonic condition fish and fowl may not be widely dissimilar, yet their completed organisms are not the same. Each class, too, consists of an endlessly diversified array of species, and the variations among individual members of the same species are practically limitless.
(2) In its functions. Although all living creatures have certain essential characteristics in common, resembling one another in their chemical constituents, in their living by respiration, in their growth by intersusception of nutriment, in their capability of reproduction, yet the ordinary functions they are meant to perform through their respective organs are different in different kinds of animals. The fowls, e.g. were designed to fly through the atmosphere; the fish to swim in water. In its sphere. The different living creatures are differently located,the fish in the sea, the birds in the air,each one’s sphere being adapted to its nature.
3. Progressive. Science, no less than Scripture, attests that in the introduction of life to our globe there has been a regular and continuous gradation from lower to higher forms of organization, and has ventured to propose, as its solution of the problem of vital progression, external conditions, embryonic phases, use and disuse of organs, natural selection, &c. These theories, however, are declared by competent authorities to be insufficient. The solution of Scripturespecial creationhas at least the merit of being sufficient, and has not yet been disproved or displaced by modern research.
IV. ITS EXCELLENCE. God saw that it was good
1. As the handiwork of God. Nothing that God makes can be otherwise than beautiful and good (Ecc 3:11; 1Ti 4:4).
2. As an ornament to nature. Without the vegetation of the third day the world would present an extremely uninteresting and uninviting appearance. Much more would it be devoid of attraction and cheerfulness if the myriads of sentient beings with which it is peopled were absent.
3. As the servant of man. From the first it was prepared with the express intention of being subjected to man’s dominion, and doubtless the Creator’s approbation had regard to this beneficent design.
V. ITS PERPETUATION. “Of the causes which have led to the origination of living matter,” says Huxley, “we know absolutely nothing; but, postulating the existence of living matter endowed with that power of hereditary transmission and with that tendency to vary which is found in all matter, Mr. Darwin has shown good reason for believing that the interaction between living matter and surrounding conditions, which results in the survival of the fittest, is sufficient to account for the gradual evolution of plants and animals from their simplest to their most complex forms” (‘Ency. Brit.,’ art. Biology). Moses accounts for the origination of living creatures by a Divine creation, and for their continuance by the Divine benediction which made it the law of their being to propagate their kind and to multiply in masses. The remarkable fecundity which by the blessing of Elohim was conferred upon both fish and fowl is graphically portrayed by Milton (‘Par. Lost,’ 7.387). That from neither the aquatic nor aerial creatures has this power of kind-multiplication departed naturalists attest. “All organized beings have enormous powers of multiplication. Even man, who increases slower than all other animals, could, under the most favorable circumstances, double his numbers every fifteen years, or a hundred-fold in a century. Many animals and plants could increase their numbers from ten to a thousand-fold every year”.
Lessons:
1. Adore him who is the Author and Preserver of all life in the creatures.
2. Respect the mystery of life; and what we cannot give let us be careful not to destroy.
3. Appreciate the value of the living creatures.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 1:20-23
The fifth day.
I. LIVE UNDER THE BLESSING OF GOD.
1. Abundance. Swarming waters, swarming air? preparing for the swarming earth. “Be fruitful, and multiply.” The absence of all restraint because as yet the absence of sin. God’s law is liberty. The law of life is the primary law. If there be in man’s world a contradiction between the multiplication of life and the happiness of life, it is a sign of departure from the original order.
2. Growth, improvement, advancement towards perfection. The fish, fowl, beast, man exist in a scheme of things; the type of animal life is carried up higher. The multiplication is not for its own sake, but for the future. Generations pass away, yet there is an abiding blessing. Death is not real, though seeming, destruction. There is a higher nature which is being matured.
3. Service of the lower for the higher. God blesses the animal races for the sake of man, the interpreter of creation, the voice of its praise. He blesses the lower part of human life for the sake of the soul.
II. LIFE UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. The immense productiveness of nature would become a curse, not a blessing, unless restrained by its own laws. The swarming seas and air represent at once unbounded activity and universal control by mutual dependence and interaction. So in the moral world. It is not life, existence, alone that betokens the blessing of God, but the disposition of life to fulfill its highest end. We should not desire abundance without the grace which orders its use and controls its enjoyment.R.
Gen 1:20. And God said, Let the waters, &c. The formation of things inanimate being completed, the all-wise Creator proceeds, from the most noble of these, the heavenly bodies, to those which are next in degree, the least noble of the animate creation, namely, the inhabitants of the waters. Houbigant justly prefers the English translation here to all those which render the original by the word reptilia, reptiles, or creeping things, under which denomination, certainly, neither the fish, nor the birds, do come; and therefore, after the English, he translates it, animam motabilem; as we, the moving creature. The Hebrew verb and noun here are of the same derivation; ishretzu, sheretz: and the lexicographers tell us, that sheretz, is derived from that verb which signifies to produce or increase abundantly, on account of the abundant production, or increase of these creatures. This being the case, the passage may be rendered with the strictest propriety, ‘Let the waters produce abundantly their productions, which have life:’ in which general expressions the whole increase of the watery world is included.
And fowl that may fly, &c. It should seem by our translation as if the fowl, as well as the fish, were the production of the waters: but you see, from the margin of the Bible, that the Hebrew is, and let fowl fly above the earth, in the open firmament of heaven; i.e.. in the air; which is not only more agreeable to the original, but more consistent with what is said in chap. Gen 2:19. that God formed the fowl out of the ground. Some birds being of an amphibious nature, living partly by land, and partly by water, and all birds having many things similar to the fishy kind, may be the reason why they are thus united. For naturalists have observed, that the eyes of both are formed similar; as is the conformation of the brain: their bodies are poised alike to swim, the one in the air, and the other in the water: they are each oviparous, and in many other particulars correspond. This may afford some ground for the conjecture of Dr. Gill, that they were created out of earth and water mixed together, or out of the earth or clay that lay at the bottom of the waters.Note; the Samaritan and Syriac versions agree with our marginal translation.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 1:20-23
20Then God said, Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens. 21God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. 23There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
Gen 1:20-23 Invertebrates appear in the Cambrian Period suddenly and in abundance of forms. There is no physical evidence of a gradual development.
The verbs swarm (BDB 1056, KB 1655) and fly (BDB 733, KB 800) used in Gen 1:20 are both IMPERFECTS used as JUSSIVES.
Gen 1:20 living creatures This same word, nephesh (BDB 659), is used of humans (cf. Gen 2:7) and animals (cf. Gen 2:19; Lev 11:46; Lev 24:18). It represents life force (cf. Eze 18:4) related to and dependent on this planet.
birds Literally this is flying things (BDB 733) because in Deu 14:19-20 it can also refer to insects.
Gen 1:21 created This is the term bara (BDB 135, KB 153, Qal IMPERFECT) as in Gen 1:1. It implies divine creation. Man and the animals are made in Gen 1:24-25 which implies out of previously existing matter (i.e. dirt). However bara is used for man in Gen 1:27 (three times).
This special term is used of (1) the universe (or earth) in Gen 1:1; (2) of the sea creatures in Gen 1:21; and (3) of mankind in Gen 1:27.
NASB, NRSV,
TEV, NJBthe great sea monsters
NKJV, NIVgreat sea creatures
LXX, KJV,great whales
JBgreat sea-serpents
This may refer to leviathan (BDB 1072, cf. Psa 104:26; Psa 148:7; Job 41:1 ff). Sometimes the word is associated with Israel’s enemies: (1) Egypt, Isa 51:9; Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2 (sometimes referred to as Rahab cf. Psa 89:10; Isa 51:9) and (2) Babylon, Jer 51:34. Often it is associated with cosmic/spiritual enemies, Job 7:12; Psa 74:13; Isa 27:1. The Canaanite creation account makes this a god fighting against Baal but in the Bible it is a good creation of the one true God.
every winged bird This includes everything that flies, birds and insects (cf. Deu 14:19-20).
Gen 1:22 As the plants were made to reproduce, so too, the animals. God wants His planet filled with life (series of Qal IMPERATIVES [and one JUSSIVE], cf. Gen 1:28; Gen 9:1; Gen 9:7). This was one of the rebellion issues (i.e. unwillingness to separate and fill the planet) of the Tower of Babel (cf. Genesis 10-11).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary, which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought-provoking, not definitive.
1. How is science related to the Bible?
2. The real questions are the who and why of creation, not the how and when. If this is true, how then should we interpret Genesis 1-2?
3. How did God create the physical world? Should we push fiat, ex nihilo if this is poetry?
4. What is the major thrust of Genesis 1?
5. How is the Bible like/unlike other creation accounts?
SOME HELPFUL RESOURCES
A. Objections Sustained by Phillip Johnson
B. Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson
C. Creation and Time by Hugh Ross
D. The Creator and the Cosmos by Hugh Ross
E. The Genesis Question by Hugh Ross
F. The Christian View of Science and Scripture by Bernard Ramm
G. The Scientific Enterprise and Christian Faith by Malcolm A. Jeeves
H. Coming to Peace with Science by Darrel R. Falk
I. The Language of God by Francis S. Collins
J. Who was Adam? by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross
K. The Lost World of Genesis One, IVP (2009) by John H. Walton
CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS INTO Gen 1:24 to Gen 2:3
INTRODUCTION
A. In the past two centuries, OT scholars have often asserted that Genesis records two creation accounts by different authors, using different names for God. However:
1. this may be typical eastern literary form of a general account followed by a more specific account
2. Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 may be a summary account of the creation of this planet and Gen 2:4-25 refers to the creation of the first couple.
3. this may reflect the different aspects of God’s character (i.e. rabbinical, see SPECIAL TOPIC: Names for Deity )
a. Elohim – creator, provider and sustainer of all life
b. YHWH – savior, redeemer and covenant God of Israel
B. There seems to be a distinction made between God creating out of nothing and created things bringing forth. Example: God created in Gen 1:21 yet in Gen 1:20 the water produces; in Gen 1:25 God made yet in Gen 1:24 the earth produced. Augustine noticed this distinction and postulated two acts of creation: (1) matter and spiritual beings and (2) their organization and diversification.
C. This passage clearly teaches that humans are like the higher land animals:
1. both have nephesh, Gen 1:24; Gen 2:7;
2. both were created on the sixth day, Gen 1:31;
3. both were created from the ground, Gen 2:19;
4. both eat plants for food, Gen 1:29-30;
5. both procreate.
However, humans are also like God:
1. special creation, Gen 1:26; Gen 2:7;
2. made in the image and likeness of God, Gen 1:26; and
3. have dominion, Gen 1:26; Gen 1:28.
D. Gen 1:26 Let us . . . (cf. Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8) has been greatly discussed.
Several theories have emerged:
1. The plural of majesty (but no early example in the Bible or in rabbinic literature)
2. God speaking of Himself and the heavenly court of angels, 1Ki 22:19
3. Points toward plurality in God, and therefore, foreshadowing of the Trinity, see SPECIAL TOPIC: The Trinity , Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8. It is to be noted that (a) Elohim is PLURAL and (b) divine persons are mentioned in Psa 2:2; Psa 110:1; Psa 110:4 : Zec 3:8-10.
E. Theories as to the meaning of image and likeness:
1. Irenaeus and Tertullian:
a. Image physical aspects of humanity
b. Likeness spiritual aspects of humanity
2. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, and John of Damascus
a. Image nonphysical characteristics of man
b. Likeness aspects of man that can be developed such as holiness or morality, and if not developed then are lost.
3. The Scholastics (Thomas Aquinas)
a. Image mankind’s rational ability and freedom (natural)
b. Likeness original righteousness and supernatural gifts that were lost at the fall.
4. The Reformers
a. All basically denied any distinction between the terms (Gen 5:1; Gen 9:6).
b. Luther and Calvin both express this concept in different terms, but basically expressed the same truth.
5. I think that they refer to our (1) personality; (2) consciousness; (3) language skills; (4)volition; and/or (5) morality.
F. See SPECIAL TOPIC: Natural Resources, below
SPECIAL TOPIC: NATURAL RESOURCES
life = soul. Hebrew. nephesh, as in verses: Gen 1:21, Gen 1:24, Gen 1:30; Gen 2:7, Gen 2:19; Gen 9:4, Gen 9:5, Gen 9:5, Gen 9:10, Gen 9:12, Gen 9:15, Gen 9:16. Lev 11:46, &c. See App-13.
Man Creations Crown
Gen 1:20-31
Creation reveals Gods nature, as the picture the artist. His eternal Power and Godhead are visible in His works. See Rom 1:20. And all things and beings were made through Jesus Christ. Consider Col 1:15-16. The hands of the Son of God wove the blue curtains above us and filled them with luminaries. The seas are His and He made them, and filled them with living creatures. The woodlands are the outcome of His mind, and He filled them with flowers and birds. He taught them to live without care. He filled the tiny heart of the mother-bird with love to her young and blessed her. His are the cattle on a thousand hills. He molded the red earth into His own likeness and made Man. We were made to have dominion. See Psa 8:6-8. Ask Him to put all things, especially all the evil things of your heart, under your feet. The world is good, and if you were good, you would find it so.
Let the waters: Gen 1:22, Gen 2:19, Gen 8:17, Psa 104:24, Psa 104:25, Psa 148:10, Act 17:25
moving: or, creeping, 1Ki 4:33
life: Heb. a living soul, Gen 1:30, Ecc 2:21
fowl that may fly: Heb. let fowl fly, This marginal reading is more conformable to the original, and reconciles this passage with Gen 2:19. The word fowl, from the Saxon fleon, to fly, exactly corresponds to the original, which denotes every thing that flies, whether bird or insect.
open firmament: Heb. face of the firmament, Gen 1:7, Gen 1:14
Reciprocal: Gen 1:6 – Let there Gen 6:20 – fowls Exo 1:7 – fruitful Psa 8:8 – The fowl Psa 50:11 – know Psa 69:34 – moveth 1Co 15:39 – General
Gen 1:20. The moving creature that hath life Endued with self-motion and animal life. How much soever we may be astonished at the stupendous vastness and magnificence of inanimate matter, the least piece that is animated and has life, is still more admirable. But who can conceive the nature of life? We see it daily around us, but cannot comprehend it!
We observe that it enables millions and millions of creatures to act, as it were, of themselves, and to seek and obtain such enjoyments as give them a sensible pleasure; but how it does this surpasses all understanding: and we can reach no more of its nature, than that it is such an amazing property, as, if we think at all, must carry up our thoughts to that Almighty Being, who alone could bestow such a wonderful blessing, and who, in his exuberant goodness, has conferred it, not on one or a few merely, but on innumerable millions, and has inclined and enabled them to communicate it to millions and millions more of the same species with themselves, that shall succeed one another till time shall be no more! Thus in the work of creation, after the formation of light, air, water, and earth, the originals of all things, he proceeds from creatures less excellent to those that are more so: from vegetables to animals; and then from animals less perfect in their form to the more perfect. Such was the Creators progress in his work; and, in imitation of him, we should be continually advancing to greater excellence and perfection in our dispositions and actions. Fish and fowl were both formed out of the water: there being a nearer alliance and greater resemblance between the form of the bodies in general, and the motions of creatures that swim and of those that fly, than there is between either of these and such as creep or walk on the earth: and their bodies being intended to be lighter, and their motions swifter, the wise Creator saw fit to form them from a lighter and fluid element.
The waters are said to produce them abundantly; to signify the prodigious and rapid multiplication, especially of all the various species of fishes. The word in Hebrew, which generally stands for fish, also means multiplication; no creatures, it seems, multiplying so fast as they do.
Gen 1:20-23. On the fifth day were created the denizens of the water and the atmosphere; the creatures that move in swarms in the water, all winged creatures, including insects, and the sea monsters, especially, perhaps, such as belong to mythology, and fishes. The rendering bring forth abundantly is inaccurate; the margin gives the sense, though it would be better to translate with Driver. Let the waters swarm with swarming things (even) living souls. The term is used of creatures that move in swarms whether in the water (as here) or out of it. The RV often renders it creeping things (similarly the verb), which is the proper rendering of a noun (remes) Gen 1:24, the verb of which is translated moveth in Gen 1:21. On the distinction see Drivers article, Creeping Things, in HDB. The rendering creature that hath life is more tolerable to the English ear than living souls, but it conceals the interesting fact that the term souls could be used of the lower creation as well as of men. There is no necessity to infer that the author regarded the winged creatures as derived from the water. The fact that they fly in front of the firmament, i.e. skim the surface of the sky turned towards the earth, shows that the writer regarded it as quite near.
1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the {p} moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
(p) As fish and worms which slide, swim or creep.
The fifth day 1:20-23
"Great sea monsters" (Heb. tauninim, Gen 1:21) were large fish, whales, squid, and all large creatures living in the water. The pagans worshipped these, but they are under God’s authority. The Old Testament writers adopted pagan imagery, but not pagan theology.
Note that Moses wrote that God created both marine animals and birds on the same "day". Evolution claims that birds evolved from reptiles and that this process took millions of years.
"The blessing of God is one of the great unifying themes of Genesis. God blesses animals (Gen 1:22), mankind (Gen 1:28), the Sabbath (Gen 2:3), Adam (Gen 5:2), Noah (Gen 9:1), and frequently the patriarchs (Gen 12:3; Gen 17:16; Gen 17:20, etc.). God’s blessing is most obviously visible in the gift of children, as this is often coupled with ’being fruitful and multiplying.’ But all aspects of life can express this blessing: crops, family, and nation (Deu 28:1-14). Where modern man talks of success, OT man talked of blessing." [Note: Wenham, p. 24.]
Birds and fish rule their respective realms by multiplying. [Note: Waltke, Genesis, p. 63.]
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)