In the preceding study we saw God appointing on the ‘fourth day’ the celestial functionaries that would govern the functions that he had created on the ‘first day’. We now proceed to God’s actions on the ‘fifth day’ found in Genesis 1.20-23.

Hebrew text:

20 וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יִשְׁרְצ֣וּ הַמַּ֔יִם שֶׁ֖רֶץ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה וְעוֹף֙ יְעוֹפֵ֣ף עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃

21 וַיִּבְרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֶת־הַתַּנִּינִ֖ם הַגְּדֹלִ֑ים וְאֵ֣ת כָּל־נֶ֣פֶשׁ הַֽחַיָּ֣ה׀ הָֽרֹמֶ֡שֶׂת אֲשֶׁר֩ שָׁרְצ֨וּ הַמַּ֜יִם לְמִֽינֵהֶ֗ם וְאֵ֨ת כָּל־ע֤וֹף כָּנָף֙ לְמִינֵ֔הוּ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב׃

22 וַיְבָ֧רֶךְ אֹתָ֛ם אֱלֹהִ֖ים לֵאמֹ֑ר פְּר֣וּ וּרְב֗וּ וּמִלְא֤וּ אֶת־הַמַּ֙יִם֙ בַּיַּמִּ֔ים וְהָע֖וֹף יִ֥רֶב בָּאָֽרֶץ׃

23 וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם חֲמִישִֽׁי׃

Transliteration:

20 way·yō·mer ’ĕ·lō·hîm, yiš·rə·ṣū ham·ma·yim, še·reṣ ne·p̄eš ḥay·yāh; wə·‘ō·wp̄ yə·‘ō·w·p̄êp̄ ‘al- hā·’ā·reṣ, ‘al- pə·nê rə·qî·a‘ haš·šā·mā·yim.

21 way·yiḇ·rā ’ĕ·lō·hîm, ’eṯ- hat·tan·nî·nim hag·gə·ḏō·lîm; wə·’êṯ kāl- ne·p̄eš ha·ḥay·yāh hā·rō·me·śeṯ ’ă·šer šā·rə·ṣū ham·ma·yim lə·mî·nê·hem, wə·’êṯ kāl- ‘ō·wp̄ kā·nāp̄ lə·mî·nê·hū, way·yar ’ĕ·lō·hîm kî- ṭō·wḇ.

22 way·ḇā·reḵ ’ō·ṯām ’ĕ·lō·hîm lê·mōr; pə·rū ū·rə·ḇū, ū·mil·’ū ’eṯ- ham·ma·yim bay·yam·mîm, wə·hā·‘ō·wp̄ yi·reḇ bā·’ā·reṣ.

23 way·hî- ‘e·reḇ way·hî- ḇō·qer yō·wm ḥă·mî·šî.

NIV:

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

Study:

On the ‘second day’ God had separated the waters above from the waters below by creating the expanse of the sky. Now God proceeds to fill these two regions.

The text clearly indicates that God created ‘the great creatures of the sea’. In many Ancient Near Eastern myths creation is seen as a byproduct of a war between the gods and the forces of chaos – the latter often being characterized as some kind of sea monster. This is precisely how Tiamat, the sea goddess and source of chaos, is portrayed in the Enuma Elish, in which she is killed by Marduk, who then proceeds to create the heavens and the Earth from her dismembered body.

The text of Genesis, clearly assuming a polemical stance, insists rather that even the fearsome sea creatures were created by God and without the use of any violence. The polemical stance is clear in the singling out of these creatures while lumping all other aquatic creatures together.

According to the text, God blesses all aquatic and avian life, which he creates ‘according to their kinds’. This last phrase is often taken by Young Earth Creationists to mean a denial of the process of natural selection (a.k.a. evolution).¹ However, given that the text does not specify the mechanism by which God creates, this argument is somewhat specious. Of course, it could be argued that the account has all creation being finished in six days – too little time for evolutionary processes to act. However, given the polemical nature of the text and, as we will see in subsequent studies, the specific structure of the entire account, it seems that the days mentioned are also a part of the polemic and are not necessarily literal twenty four hour periods. In my view, the failure of Young Earth Creationists to take into account the poetic and polemic nature of the text hinders their ability to see what the text is saying.

The issue here, of course, is what is meant by the ‘literal meaning’ of the text. Is the literal meaning that of a 21st century English speaking person or that of the original author of the text? The Young Earth Creationists clearly seem to think that it is the former. However, this means that today’s literal meaning might quite easily be discarded in the future. After all, even the Young Earth Creationists do not accept what would have been ‘literal’ in Medieval times as ‘literal’ today. This means that the meaning of the text is fluid and dependent on the culture and background of the reader. While there is always a sense in which the reader contributes to the interpretation of any text, to acquiesce to this as the ‘literal meaning’ of the text is to privilege the reader over the author. This is an unsound way of approaching scripture, which we believe was produced when God inspired the authors, not the readers. The ‘literal meaning’ of any scripture must be the meaning intended by the author of the text and it is the responsibility of any student of scripture to get as close to that meaning as possible.

On this ‘fifth day’ God populates the regions other than the land – the waters and the sky. And he blesses each creature with the words ‘be fruitful and increase in number’. From this we understand that God desires this world to be full of life, abounding with all the variety and vitality that each species brings. Here we understand the joy God derives from the diversity of life with which he has endowed this world and we too are called by the text to experience that joy in at least some small measure.

Since we are entering Lent this week, we will take a break from the studies in Genesis and will resume on 29 April 2019.

Prayer:

Our Almighty God, creator of all life, enable us to recognize your hand in the astounding variety of life on this planet. Give us eyes to perceive your wonderful creative power and your immense love for life with which you have filled the Earth. Give us hearts that beat with yours to love this world that you have created and declared good. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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^{1. Hodge, Bodie and Purdom, Dr. Georgia. What Are “Kinds” in Genesis? (Accessed on 15 January 2019). Note the waffling about what ‘species’ means, first discarding it as a ‘man-made term’ (as though there are any terms in human languages that are not ‘man-made’) and then insisting that the Latin word ‘species’ “meant the biblical ‘kind’”. While it is quite unlikely that St. Jerome used ‘species’ to mean anything like our current understanding of the word, it is also unlikely that he used the word in the way the authors of the article claim he did.↩}