1:9 God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place 1 and let dry ground appear.” 2 It was so.
1:11 God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: 3 plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, 4 and 5 trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” It was so.
1:24 God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” 6 It was so.
1 sn Let the water…be gathered to one place. In the beginning the water covered the whole earth; now the water was to be restricted to an area to form the ocean. The picture is one of the dry land as an island with the sea surrounding it. Again the sovereignty of God is revealed. Whereas the pagans saw the sea as a force to be reckoned with, God controls the boundaries of the sea. And in the judgment at the flood he will blur the boundaries so that chaos returns.
2 tn When the waters are collected to one place, dry land emerges above the surface of the receding water.
3 tn The Hebrew construction employs a cognate accusative, where the nominal object (“vegetation”) derives from the verbal root employed. It stresses the abundant productivity that God created.
4 sn After their kinds. The Hebrew word translated “kind” (מִין, min) indicates again that God was concerned with defining and dividing time, space, and species. The point is that creation was with order, as opposed to chaos. And what God created and distinguished with boundaries was not to be confused (see Lev 19:19 and Deut 22:9-11).
5 tn The conjunction “and” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation to clarify the relationship of the clauses.
6 tn There are three groups of land animals here: the cattle or livestock (mostly domesticated), things that creep or move close to the ground (such as reptiles or rodents), and the wild animals (all animals of the field). The three terms are general classifications without specific details.
7 tn It is difficult to know whether ἄνθρωποι (anqrwpoi) should be translated as “men” or “people” (in a generic sense) here. At issue is whether (1) only the Twelve were with Jesus in the boat, as opposed to other disciples (cf. v. 23), and (2) whether any of those other disciples would have been women. The issue is complicated further by the parallel in Mark (4:35-41), where the author writes (4:36) that other boats accompanied them on this journey.
8 tn Grk “the men were amazed, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) has been translated as a finite verb to make the sequence of events clear in English.
9 sn Jesus’ authority over creation raised a question for the disciples about his identity (What sort of person is this?). This verse shows that the disciples followed Jesus even though they did not know all about him yet.