And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens.
On the fifth day the world stops being empty scenery. Life swarms in the seas, and wings fill the sky. This one verse raises two questions. What new order of life begins here? And did God really say the water produced the birds?
Up to now God had made light, sky, sea, land and plants. Day five brings in something new, and one writer finds the sign of it in a single word. He quotes the verse in older English wording.
In verse 21 we get the word "created" for the second time. It appeared in verse 1, the original creation of the heaven and the earth. The intervening verses have told us what God made out of His original creation. Why does the word occur again here? We believe it is because here God commanded the waters to bring forth "the moving creature that has life." Plants show nutrition, growth and reproduction. Here we see a completely different order of life: creatures that can feel and move by their own will. Indeed the word translated "creature" in verses 20 and 21 really means "soul." So on this fifth day God brought in a higher form of life, a life that involves soul. That is why this was creation in the full sense.
Older English Bibles read as though the sea gave birth to birds. One writer traces the objection to the translation, not the text.
Chapter 2 shows that birds were made out of the earth; but Genesis 1:20, critics say, means that birds were made out of the waters. Genesis 1 says nothing of the sort. It agrees perfectly with Genesis 2:19. The objection shows the danger of reasoning from a mistake that has crept into a translation, instead of from Scripture itself. This verse does not teach that the waters were to bring forth birds, though our English version makes it look that way. It reads, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, and let birds fly about the earth in the open expanse of heaven." The point is that the birds fly in that sphere. The verse never says the waters gave birth to them.
Answering the same objection elsewhere, he shows the two clauses stand apart:
Nothing really is said or intended about the waters bringing forth birds: the latter are spoken of in a distinct clause... The true rendering is, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly, etc. and let birds fly, etc." There is no discrepancy in this case to be reconciled.
The ESV above follows this reading: the waters swarm, and the birds fly.
The order of the six days is not random.
The waters now teem with life, and birds fly in the air... It is beautiful to see God's goodness at work in all this! He first creates a setting where His creatures can live. Plant life, for instance, needs dry land to grow on. So God first brings the dry land up out of the waters. Animals need plant food, so He supplies plenty of it before He brings these creatures into being.
The first blessing in the Bible does not fall on man.
The first blessing of creation was when God made the creatures that filled the waters and the air of Adam's world. They were the first to enjoy animal life in that world. God takes pleasure in blessing His creatures. Their life is lowly, yet it can still enjoy the fruits of His goodness. He blesses them above all with a view to their reproducing and multiplying within their own sphere.
Fish and birds are called "living creatures," where older Bibles read "living souls." Some argue from this that man is no different from an animal. The reply turns on how each one received life.
Animals have living souls as part of their creation. About them God said, "Let the waters bring forth," or, "Let the earth bring forth." But God formed man of the dust of the ground, and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living creature." So man was unlike every other creature in two ways. God created him in His own image, and he "became a living soul" because God breathed into him.
One writer hears the voice of this verse again in the Gospels. A man standing before Jesus recognized it.
He felt that he was in the presence of the One whose voice said ages before, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures" (Gen. 1:20). He realized that God had come down from heaven to earth. His sinful condition rose up before him — his unfitness to stay in the divine presence. So he fell at Jesus' knees saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
- Word — God speaks, and the seas and skies fill with life. The same voice later brought a man to his knees before Jesus.
- Soul — "Creature" here means "soul": life that feels and moves. It stands above plants, so the word "created" returns.
- Order — God prepares the home before He brings in the tenants. His goodness shows in the sequence, not just the result.
- Blessing — God's first recorded blessing falls on fish and birds, so they may multiply and fill their sphere.
- Distinction — Animals received life by a command to the waters. Man became a living soul when God breathed into him.
And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
The fifth day of creation fills the seas and the sky with life. Here the Bible uses the word "created" for only the second time since verse 1. That word, and the phrase "according to their kinds," carry the weight of the verse.
At verse 21 the word "created" returns, and one writer ties it to something the plant world never had.
In verse 21 we get the word "created" for the second time. It appeared in verse 1, the original creation of the heaven and the earth. The intervening verses have told us what God made out of His original creation. Why does the word occur again here? We believe it is because here God commanded the waters to bring forth "living creatures that move." In the vegetable kingdom we see nutrition, growth and reproduction. Here we see an entirely different order of things: creatures with the power to feel and to move by their own will. Indeed the word translated "creature" in verses 20 and 21 is really "soul."
Where this word appears next, and where it does not, shows where the real dividing lines fall.
God had created the heavens and the earth before. Now He creates animate life, another order of creation entirely. So Scripture does not use the word when God brought in the animals on the sixth day. It uses it again when we are told, "God created man in His own image" (v. 27), for man is a completely different order of creation. There is a link between sea creatures, birds and animals, but none of these have any such link with mankind.
Older translations read "great whales" here. The Hebrew word is far broader than that, and the same term shows up elsewhere for very different animals.
The word tannin, used in Genesis 1:21, Job 7:12 and Ezekiel 32:2, refers to any sea monsters, without defining any particular one. … The Hebrew word tannin is also translated in the Authorised Version 'dragon,' 'sea monster,' and 'serpent.'
Commentators differ over whether whales in particular are meant. One writer notes how carefully the account marks them off from the fish.
Moses clearly separated fish, which are cold-blooded animals, from the warm-blooded creatures of the sea. Those creatures nurse their young, and they must come to the surface of the sea to breathe. … What could Moses know of such things? … And yet Moses made no mistakes in his narrative.
Some have read this passage as saying the sea produced the birds. A correct translation removes the error.
A correct translation here, as the reader can see, destroys the error that commentators, both Jewish and Christian, have tried to explain. The sense is not that the waters produced the birds. It is that God made them fly in the open expanse of the heavens. Compare Genesis 2:19, which plainly teaches that God formed the birds out of the ground, just as He formed the beast of the field.
The phrase appears twice in this one verse: once for the sea life, once for the birds. Older translations read "after his kind," and one writer traces that formula through the chapter.
In Genesis 1 the formula — "after his kind" — is repeated ten times. It covers the plants in verse 11, the sea life and the winged birds in verse 21, and the beasts, the cattle and everything that creeps on the earth in verse 25. Why "after his kind"? That leaves room for each species. The lion does not mate with the tigress. The eagle does not consort with the goose. The wasp does not breed with the bee.
The record covers sea life and bird life as a whole, and it looks ahead to what God places under man's rule.
The clear intention was to impress on all who heed the written word that the fifth day's work covered the whole circle of water animals, as well as all the bird life known to mankind… If the inspired writer speaks of what concerns man in daily life, this agrees with the blessing God spoke: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." Verses 26 and 28 confirm it strongly, for there God gives man dominion over the fish of the sea, no less than over the birds of the air.
One writer draws a personal lesson from this day for the believer.
The waters of turmoil, distress and unrest — that is, our experiences of deep trial — will bring forth abundant blessing in a way only God can do. … The power and grace of God produces some of our greatest blessing through our greatest trouble and sorrow. The birds flying in the heavens teach us that by faith our spirit may rise high above the level of our circumstances.
- Created. The word returns for the first time since verse 1. Creatures that feel and move by their own will are a new order of life, not a rearrangement of what was there.
- Soul. The word for "creature" here is really "soul." These are living souls, a step above the plant world.
- Kind. Twice in one verse God fixes life "according to their kinds," leaving room for each species.
- Distinguished. The great sea creatures stand apart from the swarming life beside them, and God formed the birds from the ground, not from the waters.
- Blessed. God calls the work good and tells it to multiply — filling the very seas and skies He would later place under man's rule.
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth.
The Bible's first recorded blessing falls not on man but on fish and birds, spoken over creatures made on the fifth day. What does it mean for God to bless them, why does the blessing come as a command, and why do these creatures receive it first?
One writer compares this blessing with the one given to man six verses later, and notes a difference in the wording of each:
This is the second benediction of creation. The first was when God made the creatures that peopled the waters and the air of Adam's world, the first to enjoy animal life in that world. God takes pleasure in blessing His creatures, whose life, though lowly, can still enjoy the fruits of His goodness. He blesses them above all with a view to their reproducing and multiplying within their sphere. Here, a second time, He blessed mankind, male and female. In verse 22 we have only "saying," but here "God said to them, Be fruitful."
So the blessing is spoken over the fish and birds; only man is spoken to directly. Still, blessing is the Bible's first word over any creature. The opposite word comes later, and for a reason:
Sadly, we have to hear the voice of cursing as well as the voice of blessing, because God must give expression to what He hates. So as soon as man falls away from Him we hear the curse pronounced. It is as clear and as strong as the blessing ever was: "Cursed," God says, "is the ground because of you" (Gen. 3:17)... Blessing, however, is the first thing we read of.
The blessing comes as an order: be fruitful, multiply, fill. One writer notes this as the first command in the chapter, and ties it to the creative power that had just brought these creatures into being:
Then we first get the imperative used. They now exist through creative power. So He commands them, through reproduction, to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the seas." And He declares that "the birds shall multiply" — again a future tense, not a present.
Increase, then, is not something matter achieves on its own. The same writer applies this against the idea that life or growth arises from within nature: "the power and the wisdom of the originator is what settles the lines of extension."
God had already made grass and herb, yet He blessed neither. Something new appears on the fifth day:
The fifth day brings another change of scene... But now even here the power of God is working; the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and birds fly in the open expanse of the heavens. It is still progress in the great creative plan, and life reaches new and higher forms than before. It is not now grass and herb, but the "living soul," and God blesses them, and bids them multiply.
The blessing comes after God has made sea and sky ready to hold what would fill them:
See how beautifully God's goodness works in all this! He first creates a place where His creatures can live. For instance, plant life needs dry land to grow on. That, therefore, is first brought up out of the waters. Animals need plant food, and He first supplies it in abundance before He brings these creatures into being. God's whole work, as we have already said, is always a prophecy of the good things to come.
The blessing names the seas and the earth — the spheres later handed to man. One writer reads the account as written for what concerns man in practice:
If, on the other hand, the inspired writer speaks of what concerns man in practice, that agrees with God's spoken blessing: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." Verses 26 and 28 confirm it strikingly. There God gives man dominion over the fish of the sea, no less than over the birds of the air, and beast and cattle and all that creep on the earth.
One writer offers a picture, not a settled reading. He links the filling of the seas with the gospel going out beyond one nation:
In Revelation 17:15 we have seen that the waters John saw in his vision stood for peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. Does it not seem that the peopling of the seas is symbolic of God's gracious work among the Gentiles through the Gospel? The Old Testament testimony kept very largely to the children of Israel... The great feature of the New Testament is, however, the Gospel of God going out world-wide to the very ends of the earth.
- Blessing first. God's first word over any creature is blessing. Cursing enters Scripture only after man falls away.
- Blessing prepared. God builds the environment before He fills it — sea and sky are ready before anything is told to fill them.
- Blessing given. The creatures exist by God's creative power, and they multiply at His command.
- Blessing received. It falls on "living souls," a higher order than herb and tree, able to enjoy the goodness God gives.
- Blessing spreading. The command to fill the waters and the earth points forward: to man's rule over both, and — as one writer suggests — to a gospel that reaches every nation.
And there was evening, and there was morning -- a fifth day.
The same words close the fifth day that closed each day before it. They raise two questions commentators press hard: is this an ordinary day, and why does a day start in the evening?
The repetition itself is the argument.
Why the repetition of "there was evening and there was morning" (vv. 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31)? All plain enough if an ordinary day is meant — remember, the Jewish day began at 6 p.m. On the larger scale it would only say that the period had a beginning and an ending — an obvious fact, not worth mentioning, much less repeating.
The order of the words matters. It sets how the Bible counts a day, and missing that has tangled readers up in the Gospels.
Next the day is counted from the evening and the morning. That statement is of great importance for other parts of Scripture. The Spirit of God never forgets it, but modern readers almost always let it slip. That forgetfulness has been a great source of the difficulties that burden efforts to line up the Gospel accounts... People have found such puzzles, for instance, over our Lord's keeping of the Passover compared with the Jews', and over the crucifixion. The reason is that they forget that the evening and the morning made up the first day, the second day, or any other.
Until now the earth had been shaped, lit and covered with plants. The fifth day adds life — and God does more than make it. He blesses it.
The fifth day brings another change of scene. We might have thought we had left the barren waste of waters behind for good. Yet here we come back to it. But now even here the power of God is working; the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and birds fly in the open expanse of heaven. It is still progress in the great creative plan, and life reaches new and higher forms than before. It is not now grass and herb, but the "living soul," and God blesses them, and bids them multiply.
The word "created" also returns on this day.
This chapter uses the word "created" for the second time (v. 21). God had created the heavens and the earth before. Now He creates animate life — a wholly different order of creation.
Some try to match the fifth day to a geological age. The text has a different aim: the sea and sky life people know.
The clear intention was to impress, on all who heed the written word, that the fifth day's work covered the whole circle of water animals and all the bird life known to mankind... Verses 26 and 28 confirm this strongly. There God gives man dominion over the fish of the sea, no less than over birds of the air, and beast and cattle and all that creep on the earth. The only detail, in fact, sets out the origin of what was put under man's rule.
Commentators differ over what the fifth day pictures. Some read it as a coming time of trouble, with the faith of God's people rising out of it.
The period that will follow the Church's time on earth is that brief but troubled time which fills so much of the book of Revelation. Out of this fearful time of trouble, the faith of Israel will reach a clearness and energy perhaps not known even in Israel's best days. It will be found in the feeble remnant that turns in penitence to God. Out of that turmoil will rise a spiritual life such as Israel never had before: a life which, in the birds flying in the open expanse of heaven, suggests a liberty and a power that promise well for the glories of the coming age.
Others read the waters as the nations, and the day as the gospel spreading beyond one people.
We have seen in Revelation 17:15 that the waters John saw in his vision stood for peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. Does it not seem that the peopling of the seas pictures God's gracious work among the Gentiles through the gospel? The Old Testament testimony went mainly to the children of Israel... The great feature of the New Testament is the gospel going out worldwide to the very ends of the earth.
The formula runs through six days. Then it stops.
In the first six days we read of the evening and the morning. On the seventh day there is no mention of this, for time is not counted in eternity.
- Counted — the closing words mark off a real day. For a vast age, saying it had a start and an end would be too obvious to repeat six times.
- Evening first — the day runs from evening to morning. Forget that, and the Gospel accounts turn puzzling.
- Created — the word used of the heavens and the earth returns on this day, because animate life is a new order. The day covers the sea and sky life man was later given to rule.
- Blessed — God does not only make the sea creatures and the birds. He blesses them and tells them to multiply. Some read that spreading life as a picture of the gospel reaching the nations.
- Unending — the refrain runs through six days, then stops. The seventh day has no evening, because eternity is not counted in days.