Three Creatures

Genesis 1 describes 3 types of land creatures: Wild animals (“living ones”) on land, livestock (“mute ones”), and creeping things (“creeping ones.”)

These three distinct titles are given and repeated multiple times in the chapter.

This is probably important.

I think most commentaries point out the history of the Hebrew people. “Livestock” are their own domesticated and known animals, where as the “wild” ones with “life in them” (because they were free) were seen as something different.

Creeping things are always just “icky.”

In Gen 2, Adam will be tasked with naming the “living ones of the field,” and the picture isn’t him naming ALL the animals, but the wild ones and birds that lived nearby.

Perhaps the livestock are already known and named?

And nobody names the creeping icky things. Strange.

Mute

Weird fact. God described three separate types of land creatures in Genesis 1: Wild animals, livestock, and creeping things.

The Hebrew word used to describe “livestock” comes from a root word that means mute.

As in, “These are the ones that do not speak.”

As opposed to the “wild animals” or the “creatures that crawl.” Or to a particular serpent.

The “creature that crawl” is a word used for “reptiles.” And “wild animals” is literally “creatures that have life in them.”

This is really wild stuff.