The Fifth Day
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.
The ESV translation lets us down a bit in its translation of Day Five. In v. 21 in our translation, we read of “the great sea creatures” However in Hebrew, the text is much more evocative—it literally speaks of “sea monsters.” Why does this matter? You and I know that what ancient peoples called “sea monsters” are only the marvelous and mysterious creatures that God put in the deep seas—whales and the like. The Israelites were not a seafaring people, and were terrified of the Deep, but even ancient mariners had only the briefest of glimpses of these majestic animals. The nations surrounding Israel spoke of dark powers at work in the seas and sacrificed to the sea monsters to keep them safe on their maritime voyages.
How foolish, says Genesis 1—everything in the seas was made by God, even the sea monsters. Don’t worship the sun, and don’t worship the sea monsters, says the Bible.
God is so creative: He even made the whales!
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P.P.S. I’m preaching on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil this Sunday. 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 AM. Don’t miss.
