Creation: Day Five - Gen 1:20-23

God proceeds to populate the two habitats he created on Day Two: the "waters below" and the sky. The former are to swarm with swarms of living things. That is the literal meaning of the Hebrew. The NRSV's "let the waters bring forth" creates the impression of a birth metaphor, which is absent in the Hebrew original. As the sky and the waters below formed a pair in the creative activity of Day Two, so now on Day Five the creation of living things in the two spheres is described in mirror fashion. Viewed from the point of view of the syntax, it is the sphere (the waters) that is the subject in the first half of verse 20, while in the second half it is the winged creatures rather than their sphere that form the subject. In both cases the author uses paronomasia: both subject and main verb derive from the same root ("swarm with swarms", "winged things wing"). And once again, in God's statement of will the living things are not given their familiar names ("fish", "birds") but rather descriptive labels. Initially (v. 20) each of the two groups is given a single category-name, while in v. 21 their subdivisions are adumbrated: "great creatures of the sea" (Hebrew ha-tanninim), "all aquatic moving creatures", "every winged creature".

Here for the first time appears a Divine Blessing (v. 22). Not all of God's creative acts described here elicit such a blessing: "be prolific, multiply and fill the seas and the earth". The great variety of species, already at the dawn of life, has already been hinted in the words "of every kind" (v. 21). We are reminded of the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 45:18): "Yahweh created the heavens; he formed the earth; he made and established it. He did not create it to remain an empty and chaotic space (Hebrew tohu): he formed it to be inhabited". The heavens and earth were not supposed to be (as it were) empty rooms, but a home for the living beings that God would create and delight in. In this account the pride of place goes to the aquatic and avian life.

Today we marvel at the biodiversity of both spheres. It has been said that in today's science more is known about outer space than about the life on our own planet Earth. And what is true of life forms on the surface is exponentially true of life below the surface: in the ocean depths.

While St. Paul intended these words to apply in the sphere of redemption and forgiveness, they are equally true in the more mundane areas of biology: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! " (Romans 11:33).