Sunday, March 28, 2021

Genesis 1 SERIES - Verse 20-23

 Commentary of Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke & Matthew Henry
 
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Vs.20-23 
....admires the Creator's wisdom and power as much in an ant as in an elephant....
 
Let the waters bring forth abundantly - There is a meaning in these words which is seldom noticed. Innumerable millions of animalcula are found in water. Eminent naturalists have discovered not less than 30,000 in a single drop! How inconceivably small must each be, and yet each a perfect animal, furnished with the whole apparatus of bones, muscles, nerves, heart, arteries, veins, lungs, etc., etc. What a proof is this of the manifold wisdom of God!

 And God created great whales - הגדלים התנינם 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.
 
Let fowl multiply in the earth - It is truly astonishing with what care, wisdom, and minute skill God has formed the different genera and species of birds, whether intended to live chiefly on land or in water. 
 
God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply - God will bless his own works, and not forsake them; and what he does shall be for a perpetuity, Eccl. 3:14.
 
---We have the thoughts that soar like fowl in the open firmament of heaven, 
---and other thoughts that dive into the mysteries of God, as the fish dive in the sea, 
and these are after-development, after-growths of that same power which at the first said, “Let there be light.”