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.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

1:16 the stars also. These stars were scattered in tremendous numbers throughout the infinite recesses of the heavens (note Isaiah 55:9). The light energy emanating from them would henceforth traverse space to “give light on the earth,” providing patterns and movements which would also enable man to keep records of time and history. In order to serve these purposes, however, light energy trails would need to be established already in place in space between each star and earth. Thus, men would have been able to see stars billions of light-years away at the very moment of their formation, in accordance with the principle of mature creation, or creation of apparent age.

1:17 light upon the earth. The establishment of the sun and moon in their light-giving functions for the earth half-way through creation week is obviously inconsistent with the day-age theory. This is compounded by the fact that plant life on the earth was made one day before the sun, a situation which would be absurdly impossible if this “day” was an “age.” Furthermore, these “lights” were to be used to measure days and years. This is the plural (yamin) of the Hebrew “day” (yom). They were also to “rule over the day and over the night,” and all this was done on the fourth day. This repeated use of the same word in the passage requires the meaning in each case to be the same. The fourth “day” was thus obviously a solar day like all the rest.

1:20 open firmament. Both the “lights” (Genesis 1:15) and the “fowl” are said to be in the “firmament of heaven.” However, the fowl were to be in the “open” (Hebrew pene) firmament of heaven, or better, “the face of the firmament of heaven.” Thus, birds fly only in the lower reaches of the vast spaces of the heavens. Or, it may be that there are two different “firmaments of heaven.”

1:21 great whales. Fish and other marine organisms were created simultaneously with birds and other flying creatures, in obvious contradiction to the sequence imagined by evolutionists. The “moving creature” (Hebrew sherets) of Genesis 1:20 is elsewhere always translated “creeping thing,” and here evidently refers to marine invertebrates and marine reptiles, as well as the fishes. The word translated “great whales” (Hebrew tannin) is elsewhere the regular word for “dragons,” and most probably refers to the great marine reptiles often called dinosaurs.

1:21 living creature. It is significant that the word “create” (Hebrew bara) is applied to the introduction of animal life, but not to plant life. Plants are highly complex replicating chemical systems, as are animals, with reproductive programs based in the remarkable DNA molecule in both cases. However, animals possess another entity–that of consciousness–which plants do not possess, and this required a second act of true creation (the first was in Genesis 1:1, the creation of the basic space/mass/time universe). Such “consciousness” is the essential meaning of the Hebrew word nephesh, commonly translated “soul,” but in Genesis 1:20 (its first occurrence) translated “life,” and then in Genesis 1:21 “living creature.” In Genesis 2:7, referring to man, it is rendered “living soul.” Thus, both men and animals possess the specially-created nephesh.

1:24 earth bring forth. The land animals were brought forth (no need for a further act of creation, since the nephesh principle had already been created) in the early part of the sixth day. There was a natural three-fold categorization (no correlation with the arbitrary classification system used by modern biologists) consisting of cattle (domesticable animals), beasts of the earth (large non-domesticable animals) and creepers (small animals that crawl or creep close to the ground). The reversal of the sequence in Genesis 1:24-25 indicates that all were formed simultaneously. The bodies of these animals, like that of man (Genesis 2:7) were all formed from the basic elements of the earth.

1:24 it was so. Note the logical order of God’s formation of things. On the first day, He made the earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere, on the second day its lithosphere and biosphere. On the central day of the week, the heavenly astrosphere was formed. Then, on the fifth day living creatures were formed for earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere, and on the sixth day for its lithosphere and biosphere. On the first day God had created and energized His elemental universe; on the last day, God blessed and sanctified His completed universe.

1:25 after his kind. The phrase “after his kind” occurs repeatedly, stressing the reproductive integrity of each land animal kind, of the same sort as that of each plant kind (Genesis 1:11-12) and each air animal and water animal (Genesis 1:21). All of these reproductive systems are programmed in terms of the biochemical genetic code, utilizing the basic elements of the earth. Both plants and animals are formed from the created eretz (“earth”), only animals from the created nephesh (“soul” or consciousness).

1:26 in our image. God is, as it were, taking counsel here with Himself, not with angels, since man was to be made in the image of God, not of angels. “Our image,” therefore, implies human likeness to the triune Godhead. Plants possess a body, and animals a body and consciousness. Man was not only to have a body (of the created “earth”) and a consciousness (of the created “soul”), but man was also to possess a third created entity, the image of God, an eternal spirit capable of communion and fellowship with his Creator.

1:26 likeness. Man was not only created in God’s spiritual image; he was also made in God’s physical image. His body was specifically planned to be most suited for the divine fellowship (erect posture, upward-gazing countenance, facial expressions varying with emotional feelings, brain and tongue designed for articulate symbolic speech–none of which are shared by the animals). Furthermore, his body was designed to be like the body which God had planned from eternity that He Himself would one day assume (I Peter 1:20).