Friday, March 14, 2008

Genesis 1:25

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.

  1. God made the beasts of the earth, cattle, and everything that creeps upon the earth.
  2. The phrase, "after his kind", used repeatedly here, suggests to me that God followed a pattern or example in creating the animals. In other words, the creation of the first cow on earth was not really the very first cow ever created anywhere, but was like other pre-existing cows. How could a beast be created after his kind if none of his kind existed? The only other possibility I can think of is that God created the first of its kind in the previous verse, and then created a whole bunch more using the first as the pattern. If that were true, it's also possible the previous verse refers just to drawings or specifications or a spiritual equivalent for these animals, not the real thing.
  3. Either this verse just repeats what the previous verse said, or something more happened here, such as God (or others under His direction) carried out the plan He announced in the previous verse. There is plenty of repetition in Hebrew scripture, so it seems it could be interpreted either way at this point.
  4. God observed that the results of this creative effort were good. Again, this is stated as if God were watching someone else perform the work under His direction, and that it was His role to judge the quality of the work. If God did the work himself, there would be little point in His making a judgment about its quality, unless we assume God is capable of doing less than good work and He wasn't sure if it would turn out well or not. Alternatively, it may just be God's personality to state the obvious.

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