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.
Every living thing that moveth. х Remes (H7431) is applied to all small animals that crawl, or appear to crawl, the ground, whether without feet they glide or drag themselves along, as reptiles, or with short legs and claws, like mice and crabs. Sherets (H8318) is applied generally to aquatic or amphibious animals; while remes (H7431) is limited in its use to a particular class that move on the ground (Genesis 6:7; Genesis 7:14; Genesis 9:2; Lev. 9:44), although in one instance it denotes all orders of land animals (Genesis 9:3).] And fowl that may fly. The marginal reading, 'and let fowl fly,' is more in accordance with the original, and at the same time removes the apparent discrepancy between this passage and Genesis 2:19.
The Hebrew `owp (H5775) denotes every description of flying animals, from fowls to birds (Deuteronomy 4:17; Job 5:7; Proverbs 23:5), bats, locusts (Nahum 3:16), and even seraphim (Isaiah 6:6).
And God created great whales, х hataniynim (H8577) hagªdoliym (H1419)] - the great whales. The word is applied to serpents (Exodus 7:9-10; Exodus 7:12), as well as to the crocodile (Exodus 29:3); but here to monsters indiscriminately, both of the land (Ps. 16:13) and of the sea (Isaiah 27:1), in both passages termed "dragons;" and whether whales properly so called were meant, or, as some maintain, the great Saurians which inhabited marshes, the use of the article distinguishes them as well-known objects. The order followed on the fifth day, then, was the creation of water animals first, next amphibious and other animals, and then birds. From the countless shoals of small fry to the great sea monsters, from the tiny insect to the king of the feathered tribes, the waters and the air were made to swarm with creatures formed to live and sport in these respective elements.