the Second Week after Easter
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Clementine Latin Vulgate
Genesis 1:21
Bible Study Resources
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Creavitque Deus cete grandia, et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem, quam produxerant aqu� in species suas, et omne volatile secundum genus suum. Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum.
Creavitque Deus cete grandia et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem, quam pullulant aquae secundum species suas, et omne volatile secundum genus suum. Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum;
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
great: Genesis 6:20, Genesis 7:14, Genesis 8:19, Job 7:12, Job 26:5, Psalms 104:24-26, Ezekiel 32:2, Jonah 1:17, Jonah 2:10, Matthew 12:40
brought: Genesis 8:17, Genesis 9:7, Exodus 1:7, Exodus 8:3
God saw: Genesis 1:18, Genesis 1:25, Genesis 1:31
Reciprocal: Genesis 48:16 - grow into Psalms 148:7 - ye dragons
Gill's Notes on the Bible
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 common are but about fifty, seventy, eighty, or at most one hundred feet. Some interpret these of crocodiles, see Ezekiel 29:3 some of which are twenty, some thirty, and some have been said to be an hundred feet long y The word is sometimes used of dragons, and, if it has this sense here, must be meant of dragons in the sea, or sea serpents, leviathan the piercing serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, Isaiah 27:1 so the Jews z; and such as the bishop of Bergen a speaks of as in the northern seas of a hundred fathom long, or six hundred English feet; and who also gives an account of a sea monster of an enormous and incredible size, that sometimes appears like an island at a great distance, called "Kraken" b; now because creatures of such a prodigious size were formed out of the waters, which seemed so very unfit to produce them; therefore the same word is here made use of, as is in the creation of the heaven and the earth out of nothing, Genesis 1:1 because this production, though not out of nothing, yet was an extraordinary instance of almighty power.
And every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind; that is, every living creature that swims in the waters of the great sea, or in rivers, whose kinds are many, and their numbers not to be reckoned;
Genesis 1:1- :
and every winged fowl after his kind; every fowl, and the various sorts of them that fly in the air; these were all created by God, or produced out of the water and out of the earth by his wonderful power:
and God saw [that it was] good; or foresaw that those creatures he made in the waters and in the air would serve to display the glory of his perfections, and be very useful and beneficial to man, he designed to create.
(Some of the creatures described by the ancients must refer to animals that are now extinct. Some of these may have been very large dinasours. Ed.)
r Hist. Animal. l. 16. c. 12. s Ib. l. 17. c. 6. t Ibid. u Nat. Hist. l. 9. c. 3. w Polyhistor. c. 65. x Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 1. y See Thevenot's Travels, par. 1. c. 72. p. 246. Harris's Voyages, &c. vol. 1. p. 287, 485, 759. z T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 74. 2. a History of Norway, p. 199. b Ibid. p. 210, &c.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
- 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, denotes also these qualities, and what possesses them. It is obvious that it denotes the vital principle not only in man but in the brute. It is therefore a more comprehensive word than our soul, as commonly understood.
21. תנין tannı̂yn, “long creature,” a comprehensive genus, including vast fishes, serpents, dragons, crocodiles; “stretch.”
22. ברך bārak “break, kneel; bless.”
The solitude בהוּ bohû, the last and greatest defect in the state of the earth, is now to be removed by the creation of the various animals that are to inhabit it and partake of its vegetable productions.
On the second day the Creator was occupied with the task of reducing the air and water to a habitable state. And now on the corresponding day of the second three he calls into existence the inhabitants of these two elements. Accordingly, the animal kingdom is divided into three parts in reference to the regions to be inhabited - fishes, birds, and land animals. The fishes and birds are created on this day. The fishes seem to be regarded as the lowest type of living creatures.
They are here subdivided only into the monsters of the deep and the smaller species that swarm in the waters.
Genesis 1:20
The crawler - שׁרץ sherets apparently includes all animals that have short legs or no legs, and are therefore unable to raise themselves above the soil. The aquatic and most amphibious animals come under this class. “The crawler of living breath,” having breath, motion, and sensation, the ordinary indications of animal life. “Abound with.” As in Genesis 1:11 we have, “Let the earth grow grass,” (דשׁא תדשׁע tadshē‛ deshe', so here we have, “Let the waters crawl with the crawler,” שׁרץ ישׁרצוּ yı̂shretsû sherets; the verb and noun having the same root. The waters are here not the cause but the element of the fish, as the air of the fowl. Fowl, everything that has wings. “The face of the expanse.” The expanse is here proved to be aerial or spatial; not solid, as the fowl can fly on it.
Genesis 1:21
Created. - Here the author uses this word for the second time. In the selection of different words to express the divine operation, two considerations seem to have guided the author’s pen - variety and propriety of diction. The diversity of words appears to indicate a diversity in the mode of exercising the divine power. On the first day Genesis 1:3 a new admission of light into a darkened region, by the partial rarefaction of the intervening medium, is expressed by the word “be.” This may denote what already existed, but not in that place. On the second day Genesis 1:6-7 a new disposition of the air and the water is described by the verbs “be” and “make.” These indicate a modification of what already existed. On the third day Genesis 1:9, Genesis 1:11 no verb is directly applied to the act of divine power. This agency is thus understood, while the natural changes following are expressly noticed. In the fourth Genesis 1:14, Genesis 1:16-17 the words “be,” “make,” and “give” occur, where the matter in hand is the manifestation of the heavenly bodies and their adaptation to the use of man. In these cases it is evident that the word “create” would have been only improperly or indirectly applicable to the action of the Eternal Being. Here it is employed with propriety; as the animal world is something new and distinct summoned into existence. It is manifest from this review that variety of expression has resulted from attention to propriety.
Great fishes. - Monstrous crawlers that wriggle through the water or scud along the banks.
Every living, breathing thing that creeps. - The smaller animals of the water and its banks.
Bird of wing. - Here the wing is made characteristic of the class, which extends beyond what we call birds. The Maker inspects and approves His work.
Genesis 1:22
Blessed them. - We are brought into a new sphere of creation on this day, and we meet with a new act of the Almighty. To bless is to wish, and, in the case of God, to will some good to the object of the blessing. The blessing here pronounced upon the fish and the fowl is that of abundant increase.
Bear. - This refers to the propagation of the species.
Multiply. - This notifies the abundance of the offspring.
Fill the waters. - Let them be fully stocked.
In the seas. - The “sea” of Scripture includes the lake, and, by parity of reason, the rivers, which are the feeders of both. This blessing seems to indicate that, whereas in the case of some plants many individuals of the same species were simultaneously created, so as to produce a universal covering of verdure for the land and an abundant supply of aliment for the animals about to be created - in regard to these animals a single pair only, at all events of the larger kinds, was at first called into being, from which, by the potent blessing of the Creator, was propagated the multitude by which the waters and the air were peopled.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
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.
