Genesis (Part 8)

The 5th day of Creation.

Genesis 1: 20-23

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” ²¹ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Here are a few of the more interesting translated words:

In verse 20, “swarms” comes from: שֶׁרֶץ sherets, sheh’-rets; from H8317; a swarm, i.e. active mass of minute animals:—creep(-ing thing), move(-ing creature).

In verse 21, “the great” is: גָּדוֹל gâdôwl, gaw-dole’; or גָּדֹל gâdôl; (shortened) from H1431; great (in any sense); hence, older; also insolent:— aloud, elder(-est), exceeding(-ly), far, (man of) great (man, matter, thing,-er,-ness), high, long, loud, mighty, more, much, noble, proud thing, × sore, (×) very.

and then “sea creatures / sea monsters” is: תַּנִּין tannîyn, tan-neen’; or תַּנִּים tannîym; (Ezekiel 29:3), intensive from the same as H8565; a marine or land monster, i.e. sea-serpent or jackal:—dragon, sea-monster, serpent, whale.

That’s right. Dragons. Sea-monsters. Serpents. In fact, “tanniyn” is used frequently throughout the bible and clearly refers to snakes. [Exodus 7, Deuteronomy 32, etc.] In Isaiah 27:1, the same word is often translated as “dragon.”

In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

So for those of you who are believers in the Loch Ness Monster, the Genesis account does appear to leave the door open for you. That is to say nothing of the “Leviathan” mentioned above in Isaiah.

At the end of the 5th day, we now have an earth, with a sky that has a sun, moon, and stars. The seas have animals (maybe dragons) and birds are flying around in the sky. The stage is set for land animals and mankind and a momentous sixth day of creation.