What Does Genesis 1:20 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The waters teem with “living souls,” placing sea life inside the same language of aliveness that Genesis later uses for the human.
THE MEANING
Life takes plural, moving form: the waters teem, and the sky fills with flight. The creatures are called a נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyah, living soul), so living soul names creaturely life here, not only human life. The reader meets creation as a field already full of living movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that “soul” belongs only to humans or names a separate inner part: the same phrase “living soul” names creatures in the waters.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁרְצוּ
yishretsu
GROWS FROM
שרץ
Swarm, teem
“bring forth abundantly / moving creature” in this verse is yishretsu. The Hebrew repeats one seed in the verb and the creature: the waters “swarm with swarms.” What English divides into bringing forth abundantly and moving creatures is one image of life multiplying through movement.
ALSO GROWS
sharats: To swarm or teem
שָׁרַץ
The verb describes the waters filling with abundant life.
sheretz: A swarming creature
שֶׁרֶץ
The creature carries the same root as the waters’ swarming, linking the life to its movement.
חַיָּה
chayyah
GROWS FROM
חיה
Live, be alive
“hath life” in this verse is chayyah. The full phrase is נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyah, living soul). Here the waters teem with living souls; Genesis 2:7 uses that same phrase for the human, placing both within shared language of aliveness.
ALSO GROWS
chay: Living, alive
חַי
It names the condition shared by the creatures called living souls.
chayyim: Life
חַיִּים
It carries the same root’s sense of being alive.
עוֹף
ʿof
GROWS FROM
עוף
Fly, soar
“fowl / fly” in this verse is ʿof. The Hebrew pairs the bird with its flight through the same root: “fowl” and “fly” echo one another. As the waters swarm, the sky’s creatures are named through the movement that fills their domain.
ALSO GROWS
ʿof: A flying creature, bird
עוֹף
This is the creature named in the sky’s domain.
ʿuf: To fly or soar
עוּף
The verb shares the root with “fowl,” making flight part of the image of abundant life.
THE PATTERN
The life God gives takes abundant, creaturely form across every domain.
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.So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis 1:20 calls the water creatures נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyah, living soul); Genesis 2:7 uses that same Hebrew phrase for the human. The shared phrase names living creaturely being in both scenes.
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