Genesis 1:20-25

Genesis 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.”

1) “And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life” - Within the water God called for living conscious creatures to come forth. In the next verse we see that God “bara” them. These were not just elements from the water as the soil and plants had been, but living conscious creatures. He called them forth from the elements in the water, but He had to add that special characteristic of a “nephesh” or soul (not the eternal spirit that man has, but a living consciousness), so this was another special act of creation, although this special creation was not a material thing, so he was not "bara"-ing any new material substance. It was the breath of life. Notice that the waters brought forth abundantly. Multitudes of creatures suddenly swarmed in the waters. This was not the slow process of evolution.

2) “and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” - God also created all flying creatures, that included the so-called prehistoric creatures such as pterodactyls and others of this nature. These would fly in the open firmament. The word open is “pene” and can mean in the face of, so these fowl would fly in the face of or in the lower part of the firmament.

Genesis 1:21-23 “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. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”

1) “And God created great whales” - This is the first mention of any specific animal. The Hebrew word here is "tannin". The term basically refers to great sea creatures. The fact that the scholars chose to translate this whale here though, is significant as we know that God had specifically prepared a whale to swallow Jonah. It is interesting that elsewhere in the Bible this word is translated dragon. If you read Job, there is a description of a great fire-breathing water creature that God has created. Many legends have some distant basis in reality. The legends of dragons may be no mere legend.

2) “and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind” - Notice that God has again let us know that each creature has its own DNA reproducing system and that species will not cross breed. This DNA would have a tremendous amount of variation within it to create many variations on the species, for example dogs. Again this is a definitive statement against evolution which requires animals reproducing other kinds than their own.

3) “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 fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” - Again God pronounces everything sin free. Not only that but he blesses the creatures. He cares about the animals of his creation. Not a sparrow falls that He doesn’t notice. (Matt. 6:26) This blessing also gives the imperative for them to abundantly reproduce so that the earth would be quickly filled. A fifth 24 hour period has elapsed.

Genesis 1:24-25 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

1) “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind” - God had filled the waters and the air. Now He made creatures for the land. This time he does not “bara”. He has the chemical elements from the earth to bring forth the animals, and He has already created a living consciousness or soul for the sea and air creatures, so there is nothing new being created here. Again creatures will bring forth after their one kind, not mutate into other kinds.

2) “cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so” - there are three categories of land animals. Since all animals had to fall into one of these categories, they have to be very general categories. The term cattle does not refer to just bovines. Cattle would refer to domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, goats, dogs, and such as would be used in animal husbandry. Beasts of the earth would refer to what we call wild animals and large animals such as lions and dinosaurs, even though back then the animals were not “wild” in the way we consider these days, since they had no fear of man and were not carnivorous.” (There was no meat eating until after the flood). Creeping things would probably refer to animals that are low to the ground and small such as small reptiles, amphibians, rats, moles and etc. (Lev. 11:29-31) not just insects and such. The classification of animals that we have today is a man-made classification and has no relation to how God classified them. He classified them to how they would relate to man. Again, they reproduce after their kind. "And it was so" indicates that we are not to believe evolution, because it happened the way God said it did. By the way, God does warn us against evolution in the Bible. 2 Pet. 3:3-5 says that in the last days there will be scoffers of God’s Word and people will say that things continue as they have from the beginning (this is an evolutionary precept called “uniformitarianism”) and are ignorant of Genesis’ truth of how the world was created.

3) “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” - apparently the animals were made in random order, since the order here is reversed from the previous verse. Again it is good. No death as evolution teaches. It is interesting that the order of creation is not the same as the order that evolution would have. Evolution says that first there was marine organisms, then land plants, then birds. Then insects, then amphibians, then reptiles and finally mammals.