Day 5
20 Then 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.” 21 God 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. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-25 NASB
By the end of day 4 the earth was now in a position to host all types of life; sea life, air life, land life including humans. At this time there was no sin in the world. Nature by the end of day 5 worked absolutely perfectly. There is no mention of death until the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Verse 20
20 Then 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.”
All living creatures were to live out their lives in the expanse of the heavens (firmament, below God’s pavement). These creatures are the ones found in the sea and the air (birds, bats)
Verse 21
21 God 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.
Moses here continues to reinterpret myths of the area (Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia). In these myths the creatures of the deep were seen to be servants of some divine being such as Yam (the sea god). Moses reinterprets this and says that these are just created creatures. They do not have a divine function and are in the same category as the birds (no extraordinary functions).
Verses 22-23
22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
On the fifth day God blesses the sea creatures however large and the birds of the air and were told to multiply. This Divine command is still in force today as they continue to multiply.
Verses 24-25
At the very end here God creates the land animals and they are from the earth.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Reflection and analysis.
Even on day 5 we find a critique of the gods. Creatures however big are just creatures created by a living. There is no Yam the so-called sea god or Baal the god of the storms. All the land animals are seen as ‘good’.
In this first creation story, God is referred to as just Elohim (the general impersonal word for God). In the end of the first creation story God is still only referred to as Elohim but He says that we were created in God’s image, and we are expected to rule (manage) earth. In the second creation story God is referred to as ‘Lord God’ and has God’s personal name. In the second creation story of Man God gets really close up in the pinnacle of the creation story. We haven’t reached there just yet.
So then we share certain types of organic life with the rest of nature; we need food, rest, water, air like the animals but as the same time we are also from above, we have God given rationality that helps us to solve problems at a deeper level and also to have communion with our holy God.
For further reading you can read the notes below taken from; biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/1-20.htm
Notes
There are some very interesting points about the living creatures in this commentary. I have included it in my notes because I will be referencing to it quite a lot but also to Von Rad’s commentary.
“Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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 ψυχή. 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 ἑρπετὰ ψυχῶν ζωσῶν. 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.”
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