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“And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.’ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day” (Genesis 1:20–23).
Contrary to modern taxonomy, the Hebrew literally says that God said: “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living lives, and let fliers fly”; so the former category includes all water dwellers and the latter, all flying creatures, including birds, bats, and some flying insects. Land insects (“creeping things”) came the next day. Where butterflies and moths fit due to their caterpillar larval stage and flying adult stage is perhaps a question for Moses when believers in Christ are in glory. The same question applies to amphibians. These are merely examples of details so minor they would otherwise clutter up the simple narrative of creation, so God is silent about them.
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