Genesis 1:21

_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._ Every living thing that moveth. х_ REMES_ (H7431) is applied to all small animals that crawl, or appear to crawl, the ground, whether without feet they glide or drag themselves along, as reptiles, or with short legs and claws, like mice and crabs. _ SHERETS_ (H8318) is applied generally to aquatic or amphibious animals; while _ REMES_ (H7431) is limited in its use to a particular class that move on the ground (Genesis 6:7; Genesis 7:14;...

21._And God created _A question here arises out of the word _created_. For we have before contended, that because the world was created, it was made out of nothing; but now Moses says that things formed from other matter were created. They who truly and properly assert that the fishes were created because the waters were in no way sufficient or suitable for their production, only resort to a subterfuge: for, in the meantime, the fact would remain that the material of which they were made existed before; which, in strict propriety, the word created does not admit. I therefore do not restrict the creation here spoken of to the work of the fifth day, but rather suppose it to refer to that shapeless and confused mass, which was as the fountain of the whole world. (76) God then, it is said, created _whales _(balaenas) and other fishes, not that the beginning of their creation is to be reckone...

20-25 God commanded the fish and fowl to be produced. This command he himself executed. Insects, which are more numerous than the birds and beasts, and as curious, seem to have been part of this day's work. The Creator's wisdom and power are to be admired as much in an ant as in an elephant. The power of God's providence preserves all things, and fruitfulness is the effect of his blessing....

Verse Genesis 1:21. _AND GOD CREATED GREAT WHALES_] התנינם הגדלים _hattanninim haggedolim_. Though this is generally understood by the different versions as signifying _whales_, yet the original must be understood rather as a _general_ than a _particular_ term, comprising all the great aquatic animals, such as the various species of whales, the porpoise, the dolphin, the monoceros or narwal, and the shark. God delights to show himself in _little_ as well as in _great_ things: hence he forms animals so minute that 30,000 can be contained in one drop of water; and others so _great_ that they seem to require almost a whole _sea_ to float in....

- VII. The Fifth Day 20. שׁרץ _shārats_, “crawl, teem, swarm, abound.” An intransitive verb, admitting, however, an objective noun of its own or a like signification. נפשׁ _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 Numbers 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, נפשׁ nephesh

EXPOSITION GENESIS 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

AND GOD CREATED GREAT WHALES,.... Which the Targums of Jonathan and Jarchi interpret of the Leviathan and its mate, concerning which the Jews have many fabulous things: large fishes are undoubtedly meant, and the whale being of the largest sort, the word is so rendered. Aelianus, from various writers, relates many things of the extraordinary size of whales; of one in the Indian sea five times bigger than the largest elephant, one of its ribs being twenty cubits r; from Theocles, of one that was larger than a galley with three oars s; and from Onesicritus and Orthagoras, of one that was half a furlong in length t; and Pliny u speaks of one sort called the "balaena", and of one of them in the Indian sea, that took up four aces of land, and so Solinus w; and from Juba, he relates there were whales that were six hundred feet in length, and three hundred sixty in breadth x but whales in commo...

Genesis 1:1. _In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth._ When that «beginning» was, we cannot tell. It may have been long ages before God fitted up this world for the abode of man, but it was not self-existent; it was created by God, it sprang from the will and the word of the all-wise Creator. Genesis 1:2. _And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep._ When God began to arrange this world in order, it was shrouded in darkness, and it had been reduced to what we call, for want of a better name, «chaos.» This is just the condition of every soul of man when God begins to deal with him in his grace; it is formless, and empty of all good things. «There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is

EVERY LIVING CREATURE The second clause, "every living creature," as distinguished from fishes merely, is taken up again in (Genesis 1:24); showing that in the second creative act all animal life is included....

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE CREATION ACCOUNT The manner in which the book of Genesis begins leaves no doubt that it is the revelation of God. The creation account is historical truth. The question is how was it given? An answer to this question claims that the Jews obtained the account from the records of other nations concerning the origin of the universe and that they altered it according to their own religious ideas. This is an impossibility. The ancient heathen nations considered God and the universe one and had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of God independent of the universe, nor did they know anything of a creation of the world. Here is something wholly different from all the theories, mythologies and other inventions of the human race. How then was it given? By revelation of God is the only answer. No human being knew anything about the origin of the heavens and t...