Genesis 1:20 Commentary and Bible Study

What a wonderful thing for God to do! In due course, though not immediately, but after the fall and the changes that would take place then, fish would provide food. But more important really is the fact that everything was saturated with life. The seas had contained beauty and life and the pools, the fresh water areas and so on. And beautiful birds flew above the earth, and there are some astonishing birds in the world, and we can appreciate the plainer birds that we have in our land and then we wonder at some of the exotic creatures that you find in other lands. And all have their beauty. What is the purpose of them? Well they all play a part in the great ecological systems we know, but to beautify the earth. That first world was so full of beauty and life and action. Nothing was totally still and boring and dull, and God was creating things that were practical, the sun and the moon, providing dry land, and at the same time the beautiful surroundings and living creatures, even before it was lawful to use them for food, they were for beauty.The word translated ‘bring forth’ is the Hebrew meaning ‘to swarm’, or ‘to teem’. It stresses the abundance of this life. God did not now create a single individual creature in each species from which all others were descended, but he created multitudes all at once so that the whole of the seas were instantly populated, and likewise with the skies. The earth had to be ready for man, that is, it had to be complete so that there was no more for God to create. Man would understand that the Earth was prepared for him to have dominion over. God therefore brought him to a fully furnished earth. Man was not created last because he was the least important of God’s creatures, but because he was the most important and everything needed to be ready for him.There is an ascending scale of importance in the creation and for this reason the fish and birds, being lower animals, were created before the land animals. The birds did not have to learn to fly, or the fish to swim. God created them fully possessing the skills from the start. The Lord has revealed many aspects of his nature through the creatures that he has made. We see his love of variety and diversity, his attention to detail, and his love for the most delicate and tender of things as well as great and powerful things.