What Does Genesis 1:21 Mean in the King James?
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.
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 same Hebrew phrase, נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayyah, “living soul”), names the creatures in the waters here and the human in Genesis 2:7.
THE MEANING
The waters teem with living souls, from the great creatures to every moving life. God creates them, the waters abound with them, and God sees that they are good. Human life belongs within this wider field of creaturely life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that “living soul” names only human beings: the same Hebrew phrase names the creatures filling the waters.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
nefesh chayyah
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self; an animate being or life as a creature.
“living creature” in this verse is nefesh chayyah. English “creature” here and “soul” in Genesis 2:7 look unrelated, but both translate נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayyah, “living soul”). The sea creature itself is named a living soul, joining human and nonhuman life in one phrase.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, person, life, or creature.
נֶפֶשׁ
The word can name a whole living being; here it describes the sea creature, not a separate inner part.
naphash: To be refreshed or rested.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb links the living self with being restored, adding the sense of life as something that can be renewed.
שָׁרְצוּ
shārtsū
GROWS FROM
שרץ
sh-r-ts
To swarm or teem.
“Brought forth abundantly” translates a verb of swarming. The waters are not a passive backdrop: they teem with the life God creates.
ALSO GROWS
sharats: To swarm or teem.
שָׁרַץ
The verse uses this root for what the waters do: they teem with life.
sherets: A swarming creature.
שֶׁרֶץ
The same word family names the creatures themselves, tying the waters’ abundance to the living beings that fill them.
THE PATTERN
God’s good regard encompasses creatures of every size and kind.
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.So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.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.The Hebrew phrase נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayyah, “living soul”) names both the creatures in the waters and the human formed from the ground. The shared phrase places human life within the larger company of living beings.
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