God’s Word for You

Genesis 1:20 Fish, birds, and my brother Dan

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, August 5, 2026

20 God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly to and fro above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

On the fifth day God brought forth living creatures that fly and that swim. The swimming things are simply called “living things” that abound in the waters. Surely this includes all of the things we encounter in the sea, whether we would classify them as fish, mammals, eels, jellyfish, shellfish, starfish, corals, clams, octopuses, certain reptiles like sea turtles, and the tiny plankton that truly swarm and abound in vast numbers. Just what God made these sea creatures from is not directly spoken. We should clear up this point.

The difference between Qal and Hifil

Ancient translations (Greek and Latin) took the main verb at the beginning of this verse to be causative, which is the usual use of the Hebrew Hifil conjugation. But the word (yishratsu) is not in the Hifil; it is in the simple declarative Qal. It says, “Let (or may) the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures,” not, “Let the waters ‘bring forth’ swarms….” Even the usually careful Martin Luther and his successor Martin Chemnitz translated and interpreted this verb as if the water were the substance of both the fish and the birds. Luther said in his lectures, “After the birds had been brought forth from the water, they took to the air in which they live.” But in the next chapter, Moses says, “The LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air” (Genesis 2:19). So the substance from which the birds were made is clearly the dust of the earth, as it was also for the land animals, and finally for Adam the first man. The firm declaration of Scripture must stand as opposed to a mistaken identification of a verb conjugation.

It would be best simply to say that God made the fish and birds on this day, and he made the birds out of the dust of the earth, and let that stand. But if someone wants to say that the Lord made the fish and the other swimming things out of the water, I would not argue.

“Let it abound with an abundance.”

Since modern English does not usually use “swarm” for things that are not bugs, I have chosen “abound with an abundance” as a parallel expression that still carries the idea of lots and lots of fish. The fish and other swimmers did not have a single breeding pair to call their ancestors. Untold millions of fish and other things inhabited the oceans, seas, lakes and streams all at once. Some of them found their breath through gills in salt water. Some used their gills in fresh water, or brackish water (partly salt, partly fresh). And some, like the great whales that will be described in the next verse, breathed air at the surface but then dove down, holding their breath and frolicking in the cold, dark deeps.

“Flying to and fro.”

The verb Moses uses for the flight of birds is in the conjugation called the Poel, showing in this case the characteristic act of flying here and there. The word I have translated as “birds” has a broader meaning of flying things, which would include such things as flying insects and even bats (Leviticus 11:19). Whatever categories we give to the birds today, Moses was content to say “flyers.” They are among the most remarkable, graceful, beautiful and delightful of all God’s creatures. My brother Dan (a fine Christian man, a husband, a father and a church musician) has spent a lifetime identifying and counting birds daily in numberless notebooks, learning their songs and habits, and drawing and painting them as well. If I were to spend as much time and energy on the study of God’s word that Dan spends on God’s birds, I might call myself a theologian.

Lessons from the birds and the fish.

Johannes Brenz (1499-1570), a pastor and strong supporter of Martin Luther and the Reformation, said: “In their appearance and song, birds bring great delight as much to the human eye as to the human ear. But just as human beings were not created chiefly to enjoy bodily pleasures, so also fish and birds were not created chiefly to be physical food for human beings and a visual delight, but rather so that they might feed and delight people spiritually, that is, so that they might incite people to know the true God and to pursue true and eternal salvation in God himself.” Surely that is the best way to think of these creatures.

A common sin among the pagans was using fish and birds to find omens about the present or future. The patterns of birds in flight, the entrails of fish—such things are foreign to our way of thinking. But such strange things were regrettable and sinful because they led people away from God and away from trusting in Christ. For everything in the whole world, even the fish and the bird, “is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe” (Galatians 3:22).

There is one bird in the Bible that teaches us clear spiritual lessons. This is the dove. The dove’s form was used by the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus to testify that this man, the son of Mary, is the true Christ and Savior, the Son of God. This was when the Father spoke and said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16). Remember that the dove was also the creature that brought back an olive branch to Noah when the earth was safe to walk upon once again after the flood waters had dried up (Genesis 8:11).

There is also one fish in the Bible that teaches us a clear gospel lesson. When Jonah ran away from the Lord and the pagan sailors threw him overboard to save their lives in the storm from the Lord, a fish swallowed the prophet and carried him safely for three days in its stomach before depositing him back safely on the ground (Jonah 1:17, 2:10). And Jesus said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). So the fish was a sign of the gospel for Jonah and for us all, since Jesus remained in the heart of the earth, which is the grave, for three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection.

There is another little lesson that Luther once shared about timid birds. When some birds built a nest in Dr. Luther’s garden and always flew away when he and his wife passed by, he said, “Dear little bird, don’t fly away. I wish you nothing but good. If only you would believe me!” Then he turned away from the nest and said, “This is how we should believe God—that he wishes us well with his whole heart.” (Table Talk, LW 54:192).

God who created us does not wish us evil, nor any harm at all. He wants us to trust in him and to look to him expecting nothing but good, so that we remember that all of his commands and warnings are excellent, for our eternal good. The writer of the Great Psalm prays, “Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight” (Psalm 119:35). And again, “I delight in your commands because I love them” (Psalm 119:47). Obedience is not to be an act of fear, but an act of faith in our God, who loves us. He gave his Son for us, and he makes us his sons and daughters through faith (Galatians 3:26).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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