TORAH · CREATION · 2 OF 3
Lights, creatures and blessing
The lights receive purposes, the waters teem and the earth brings forth living creatures. Compare the words of goodness and blessing without losing what makes each section distinct.
In this lesson
Bring back the first three days
Begin with a short recall from God speaks, separates and names. Try before reopening its source cards. If you are entering here for the first time, read that lesson first; it supplies the passage we will compare.
Without looking at the earlier reading, name something separated on each of the first two days and both developments on the third. Which day-section says ‘good’ twice? Now check Genesis 1:1–13.
1. Check the earlier actions
First, light/darkness; second, waters above/below the expanse; third, gathered waters and dry land with names, then plants and fruit trees. The third day says ‘good’ twice, in 10 and 12. If one detail was missing, return to that part before making new comparisons. We need the actual earlier wording, not only a familiar seven-day list.
Read the next part of Genesis
We have read light and darkness, divided waters, dry land and vegetation. Now attend to the lights and living creatures within the world God orders. Our passage is Genesis 1:14–25: chapter 1, verses 14 through 25. Genesis, or Bereshit, is the first book of the Torah, the five books of Moshe (Moses).
An observation points to the wording. A comparison places two passages together to see a real connection and a real difference. We will use both, then ask what a named commentator helps us understand.
What are the lights for?
The expanse is the division between waters that the earlier passage calls Heavens. Read for the purposes assigned to the lights: words such as to and for tell you what they do.
Appointed times, mo’adim, means set or recurring occasions marked in time. To govern here is to rule the day or night in the role God assigns. Notice who makes the lights and places them.
להבדיל בין היום ובין הלילה
14. God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate day from night. Let them serve as signs and for appointed times, and for days and years.
15. Let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.” And it was so.
16. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night, and the stars.
17. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18. to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. God saw that it was good.
19. There was evening and there was morning: a fourth day.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
In 14–18, list at least three jobs given to the lights. What does the account say God does with them? Are the stars omitted from verse 16?
2. Check the lights’ purposes
The lights separate day/night and light/darkness, serve as signs and for appointed times/days/years, give light on the earth, and govern day and night. God makes them and places them in the expanse. Verse 16 also includes the stars. The passage presents the lights through their God-given roles rather than introducing rival creators.
The passage calls them the greater and lesser lights, the familiar sun and moon, and also names the stars. Its attention rests on their roles. To compare, return to Genesis 1:3–5 in the first reading and keep each passage’s actual words in view.
Compare 1:3–5 with 1:14–19. What is already present in the first passage, and what is described in the second? Write a connection that does not pretend the wording is identical.
3. Check light and lights
Light, its distinction from darkness, and the names Day/Night occur in 3–5. The later passage describes the greater/lesser lights and stars with roles in illumination, governing and marking time. Both sections speak about light/darkness and day/night, so the connection is real. ‘The first light appears only in verse 14’ would miss verse 3; an invented physical account of how all this happened would go beyond the comparison.
Life in the waters and above the earth
A living creature is an animate creature. The next verses describe waters teeming with life and birds flying above the earth. “According to their kinds” again gives the passage’s groupings; follow the creatures it names rather than trying to supply a modern species list.
פרו ורבו
20. God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens.”
21. God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters teem, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. God saw that it was good.
22. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; let the birds multiply on the earth.”
23. There was evening and there was morning: a fifth day.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The account now says explicitly that God blessed the creatures. Listen to the words following that action: fruitful increase and filling. Here fruitful means producing offspring. This blessing gives life room to continue and abound.
The sixth day begins
The earth now brings forth land animals. Livestock names animals of the flock or herd; creeping creatures move along the ground; the passage also names wild animals. Read these as the groups the text gives us.
24. God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creeping creatures and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
25. God made the wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep on the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Our card stops at verse 25, within the sixth day. Its story continues in the next reading. Compare this ending with verse 23 before deciding where a day-section closes.
Which creatures are described in 20–23, and which in 24–25? Where do the birds fly and where are they to multiply? Which of these two cards ends with the evening/morning refrain?
4. Check the settings and the day boundary
Verses 20–23 describe creatures teeming in the waters and winged birds; the birds fly above the earth across the expanse and are to multiply on the earth. Verses 24–25 describe land animals: livestock, creeping creatures and wild animals. Verse 23 closes the fifth day. Verse 25 does not close day six; the next reading continues it through 31. Thus ‘birds belong only to the sky’ is less precise than the verses.
Hear the blessing with Ramban
Ramban, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, is one of our great Torah commentators. His explanation of verse 22 attends to the fruitful increase God gives the creatures. Here is the opening excerpt:
גזר בהם הברכה ואמר בהם שיפרו וירבו כלומר שיעשו פירות רבים שיוציא האחד רבים כמותו
He decreed blessing for them and said that they should be fruitful and multiply: that is, produce abundant offspring, so that one should bring forth many like itself.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Keep the two biblical sentences distinct: God sees that it is good, and God blesses. The first expresses an evaluation; the blessing’s own words name fruitful increase. Read them together without making one sentence replace the other.
In 21–22, identify what God sees and what God says in blessing. What does ‘be fruitful’ mean here? How does Ramban's opening explanation help?
5. Check goodness and blessing
Verse 21 says God sees that the creatures are good. Verse 22 blesses them with being fruitful, multiplying and filling the waters, and the birds multiplying on earth. Here fruitfulness means producing offspring, not growing literal fruit on an animal. Ramban explains the blessing as abundant increase, one bringing forth many like itself. The statement of goodness and the blessing belong together, but they are not interchangeable labels.
Now compare the wording in the land-animal paragraph. It says that God sees goodness, but does not repeat verse 22’s blessing sentence. Ramban addresses that difference in the same comment:
Ramban on Genesis 1:22 · Paraphrase of his later explanation
Ramban also explains that the land animals share in the fruitful increase decreed for the living creatures of the waters. A separate blessing sentence need not be repeated for them.
A reader says, ‘The land animals receive no repeated blessing sentence in 24–25, so they must be excluded from fruitful increase.’ What is directly observed, and what does Ramban explain?
6. Check the observation and Ramban’s explanation
The direct observation is that 24–25 does not repeat the blessing formula from 22. Those verses do say God made the land animals and saw that they were good. Ramban explains that the fruitful increase decreed for water creatures extends to the land animals. His explanation does not alter the biblical wording; it shows why an omitted repeat need not mean exclusion. Keep ‘the verse says’ and ‘Ramban explains’ distinct.
Seed and fruitful increase
Go back to Genesis 1:11–12. The earth had already brought forth plants producing seed and trees bearing fruit with seed. Bring that actual detail into your comparison with the blessing to living creatures.
Return to 1:11–12 and compare 1:21–22. What in each passage points beyond a single isolated specimen? What wording is new in the later one?
7. Check the shared direction and different wording
Plants produce seed, and fruit carries seed, in 11–12. In 21–22 living creatures appear according to their kinds and receive the blessing to multiply and fill. Seed and fruitful increase both point toward continuing abundance, but the explicit phrase ‘God blessed them’ occurs in 22, not 11–12. Saying that plants cannot reproduce because there is no blessing formula would ignore their stated seed-bearing. Saying both passages use exactly the same formula would also be inaccurate.
Build a comparison that keeps the details
The later sections return to the light, heavens, waters and earth of the earlier reading. A useful comparison explains what connects them while leaving room for new actions, purposes and words.
Use the first-day source card, the divided waters and the gathered waters and land. With a partner, each person can prepare one pairing; then ask each other, “Which words make that connection?”
Make two pairings on paper: 1:3–5 with 1:14–19, and 1:6–10 with 1:20–25. For each pairing, write a connection using the actual words. Then record one detail that prevents the claim ‘the later days simply copy the earlier days.’ Finish with a sentence beginning ‘Ramban helps me understand…’.
8. Compare your two pairings
One pairing connects Day/Night and separated light/darkness with the lights that illuminate, separate and govern them. Another connects the heavens, waters and dry land with creatures located in those settings. The later sections also add assigned purposes, kinds, fruitful blessing and living movement; they do not repeat the earlier speeches unchanged. Birds both fly above earth and multiply on it; vegetation already appeared on day three; and day six continues beyond this lesson. Any one accurate limiting detail makes the comparison more careful. Ramban helps me understand blessing as fruitful increase and explains why the land-animal paragraph need not repeat it.
Check your work for two connections grounded in verses, one accurate detail that limits the comparison, and a sentence naming Ramban’s contribution. A memorable slogan can help you remember, but your own explanation should still lead another reader back to the words.
Return next session
At the next sitting, recall three purposes of the lights, the recipients and content of the first explicit blessing, and what still remains unfinished in the sixth-day reading. Check the verses after your attempt.
9. Check your recall
The lights separate day/night, mark signs and appointed times/days/years, give light and govern day/night. The water creatures and birds receive the blessing to be fruitful, multiply and fill; birds multiply on earth. The sixth day has begun with land animals, but humanity, food and the closing evaluation/refrain remain in 26–31. Reread 14–18 or 21–25 if you replaced these details with only ‘sun, fish, animals.’
Read in context
- Genesis 1: verses 14–25 are rendered completely here. Verses 1–13 supply the earlier comparisons; verses 26–31 complete the sixth day.
- Ramban on Genesis 1:22: the opening excerpt concerns fruitful increase; the later paraphrase concerns the land animals. Both are selected parts of his fuller comment.