Bible Study Genesis Part 18-Making Fishes Out of Nothing

“Create” is one of the most loaded words in the Bible, so it’s worth asking a simple question: why does Genesis 1 barely use it? We slow down in Genesis 1:21–24 and follow the thread from the English word "create" back to the Hebrew “bara,” arguing that its rare appearance is a signal, not an accident. If “bara” means creating from nothing, then the moments where God “creates” carry a different weight than the places where the text says God “made” something or the earth and waters “brought forth” life.

From there we move into Genesis 1:22 and the command to “be fruitful and multiply,” showing how the creation story is not only about origin but also about God’s intention for living things to grow, fill, and reproduce “after their kind.” We also highlight the first mention of blessing in the Bible, connecting it to the Hebrew “barak” and the vivid idea of God stooping down to give more than what is expected, enabling life to flourish rather than merely exist.

Along the way, we talk candidly about Christian apologetics, why faith should not fear facts, and how modern skepticism inside and outside the church can train people to treat Genesis as myth or mere symbolism. If you want a serious Bible study that respects Scripture and treats Genesis as something real and actionable, you’ll find plenty to chew on here. Subscribe for the next part and share this with a friend who needs a deeper read of Genesis.

Transcript

Why Scripture Deserves Full Attention

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold. And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Returning To Genesis 1:21

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We have a couple of weeks left yet before we will close it out and move on to the second chapter. The way I figured it, I think I told you last time we've been at this for about five months. Now, there's a lot going on in this first chapter. I don't suspect that each one of the chapters will go five months, but you never know. It's difficult to pass by these things. There's so much material to talk about, so many wonders, so much that God is trying to share with us. I feel like we need to chew on every little bit, and that's what we've been doing, and that's what takes us so long. So last time we ended in the midst of talking about verse 21. Let's hop right back in there. I'll read it first, of course. 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. Now, I want you to notice something. Listen to me closely. Here the word created is brought up for only the second time in this entire discourse. Isn't that interesting? Just the second time in 21 verses, we see this word create. And the first occurrence goes all the way back to the opening stanza. God created the heaven and the earth. That's verse one. And then it doesn't come back up again until we're almost two-thirds of the way through the entire chapter. Though you may not, I find it curious that so far we've only seen the word create twice.

Faith That Welcomes Hard Questions

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Now I'm sure that you're thinking to yourself, why do we keep having to stop and look at this sort of stuff? Well, my answer is that when interesting things are pointed out, I think people tend to pay more attention to it. You see, part of the problem in the modern Christian world is that we spend too much time avoiding the interesting parts of Scripture. And I think the reason for that is because interesting is often open to challenges. And for some reason, we're afraid of being challenged on Scripture. You know, I was once accused of being a Christian apologist, and the person who called me that did not intend that to be a compliment. He was a traditional churchman who must have felt that presenting God's word in a way that invites intelligent scrutiny is somehow improper. In case you don't know, an apologist is one who puts forth the effort to prove something is true. Listen, I know that attempting to do such a thing with Scripture can be problematic, but I also happen to think that the Bible can stand up to any debate. We just have to stop being afraid of the possibility that someone is going to ask us for facts. We have plenty of them. And to pretend that Christians don't need facts to believe in is ludicrous. So let me reset. For only the second time in the first chapter of Genesis, for only the second time in the creation story, we get the word create. In fact, second of only three in this entire chapter. Any idea when the word comes up again? I'll read it to you. Verse 27. So God created man in his own image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Yes, I know that's number three, four, five, but you get my point. Only three total verses contain the word create. And this final time, this one I just read to you, is when God creates man. Now that should give you a clue as to why I think this is significant. So in only three places does the English word create make an appearance in what we traditionally call the creation story. Doesn't that seem odd to you? Now let me try and make my case as to why I think this is important.

Bara Means Creation From Nothing

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And the best way to begin to do that, I think, is to remind you of what the original Hebrew word is that's being translated into our word create and its various forms. I'm sure you know it's bara. Anyone remember what's so significant about this word? No, that's admittedly an obscure question. So if no one knows the answer that I'm looking for, that's my fault. But anyone know what's significant about it? Well, bara describes the action of creating something out of nothing. When something is created out of nothing, listen to me, then that something must be unique. Making something from something means that this new something has previously existing elements. But bara is a creation of something that's one of a kind through and through, because it is something made of nothing. When you see the word create in Genesis, it's using the word bara, and bara means creating something from nothing. Everything contained in something made out of nothing is by definition new. When light is mentioned in this creation story, God doesn't use the word bara. He didn't use the word create. Of course, that's not how the King James translates it, as I told you when we were there. But in essence, the original is the same thing. The King James says, Let there be light, and there was light, but it should say light be. Either way, it's not this, either way, it's not using the word create or created, is it? The Bible is not talking about a bara creation of light. What it is, I can't be certain, but I know it's not that. Same can be said about the firmament. Verse 7 says, God made the firmament, similar to the English word create, but the original Hebrew words are quite a bit different. And the grass and the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit. Well, those were just brought forth. The sense and the appearance of these things, both in the original and in the translation, is not a creation from nothing. As before, it's impossible to determine just how they were brought forth, but the fact that bara is not used tells us, listen to me, these have a different type of origin. Here, I believe, is part of the evidence that much, much of the creation story was more of a recreation or reorientation story. And believe me, when the scholars scoff at the idea that this is a recreation story, I wish they would pay attention to this word bara and its use. The light, the firmament, the grass, herbs, fruit trees, certainly these things were created, but the record of their creation is not here. Otherwise, we would expect the word bara to be used, wouldn't we? But John, isn't it possible that the author was simply writing in a more creative and interesting way by using diverse terms? Yes, absolutely possible. As I've said all along, my points about recreation are speculative. But you must admit the body of evidence and not just the word usage is compelling. No need or time to go all over all of that again. However, I'm standing by my suggestion that since bara is not used, it is entirely conceivable, listen to me, this is controversial. It is entirely conceivable that these weren't created here, but rather already in existence, and simply now their presence is brought on the scene from somewhere else. Now, why are we talking about this again, John? Because and God created barra 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 it was good. Now, if this verse were not in the middle of all of those bees and makes and bring forths, there would be no reason to mention it or notice it. And my argument would likely not hold up. But for some reason, God brought back the bara word for only the second time. It's the rare use of bara that draws my attention. It's the scant presence of the word create in a creation account that makes me curious. When the heaven and earth were bara, it was brought in out of nothing, meaning nothing like it existed before, right? That was the first time bara was used. Indeed, the only other time so far, prior to this verse about the great whales, etc., that bara was used. That's well strange, don't you think? Now, all the way down here in verse 21, God is baraing something again. He's baraing earthly life. Great whales, let's just say big sea creatures. But not just that. He's baraing every living creature that moveth. Let's read it again. And God bara, 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. Listen, he's using the word bara just like he did when he made the heaven and the earth out of nothing, way, way back, who knows how long ago. When he did so, he made the heaven and the earth out of nothing, and which was by the definition of the word like nothing that had existed before. And this is my point. This complex set of creatures created as recorded in Genesis 121 had never existed anywhere else before. You can't look away from this, you can't poo-poo it, you can't disregard it if God's word matters to you. You can't just walk by this word bara without wondering why it's here and why it's here for only the second time, and the only other time in this creation story is when God creates man in his own image. If I've not made my point, let me come right out with it. When God uses the word bara, when we see the word create in Genesis 1, it means it can only mean that what God is bringing forth is unlike anything that ever existed before. It contains nothing that existed previously. This fact puts a very important spin on this account. Now I'm sure I failed to communicate this fascinating thought, but we don't have time to say anything else. Not much more to say,

Be Fruitful And Multiply Defines Life

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anyhow. Verse 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the fowl multiply in the earth. God wants all these living creatures, these ones he's borrowed, these borrowed creatures, he wants them to be fruitful and multiply. And you know why? Because they have to be fruitful and multiply so we can be fruitful and multiply, fruitful. God is having these never existed anywhere before creatures, he's having them fill the waters. In verse 22, he actually uses the word multiply twice. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Growth is God's obvious intention. Multiplying means growth. Grow and fill the waters. That's a command. He wants this new form of life to propagate. And by the way, the ability to reproduce, listen to me, most of you know this. The ability to reproduce is a scientific sign of life. It's part of what defines life scientifically. A thing that can multiply is classified in science as living. Rocks are not classified as living because they can't make other rocks. Trees, on the other hand, are living because they can make other trees. Clouds are not living creatures by definition because they don't multiply. They don't reproduce. What's your point? This isn't just any old creation. This is multiplying life. When he created Barah from nothing, when he created that life, that life he created, he made it possible for those living creatures to bring forth other living creatures, to use a biblical term, after their kind. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the

Barak And The First Blessing

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earth. By the way, here we have another first. The first mention of something that is altogether biblical, meaning it's found prolifically throughout the rest of Scripture. Anyone notice what it was? Blessing. And God blessed them. He never blessed anything to our knowledge to this point. He blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth. Now the Hebrew word is barak, and it is, as you can imagine, and as I inferred a moment ago, a very common biblical word. Barak is a verb that gets translated the vast majority of the time into the English verb to bless, but also on occasion to salute and even to praise one time. However, it is, listen to this, it is literally translated to kneel, which, if you think about it, makes sense. It's a picture word that gives us the image of someone stooping down to give assistance in some way. When you bless someone or pray for blessings on someone or render assistance to someone, you are giving them something above and beyond what is expected. My neighbor helps me with car repairs when I need it. And when he does so, he's blessing me. Now I could take it to some other mechanic. That's the expected course of action. But because he's a good friend, I have more than is common for anyone else. I have been blessed by my neighbor who works on cars. You get it. You understand what a blessing is. Now, what does this have to do with verse 22? And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth. God kneeled down and did something special for these creatures. Listen to me, so that they can be fruitful and multiply to the point that they will fill the seas. Now he could have just created them and their typical nature would take over, but he created and blessed them. So they got more than what is expected. As I said, getting more than what is expected is a definition of blessing. This concept of blessing exists in the Bible all the way through. But here we get it for the very first time. And then the blessings continue all the way to the end and then beyond. God is astonishing. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales and everything. Why are we doing this? Why do we go through so much detail? Because I don't want you to ever think that anything in the Bible is just boring and you want to get through it to the end. People try to tell you this is a boring book. I don't think anyone on this call thinks it's boring anymore because we've taken the time to find out there's real purpose, real love behind this. God wanted to do things in a very, very specific way. Way and more than that, he wanted us to know that he did that. And we blow through it most of the time. If we've ever been taught the first chapter of Genesis, it's a very narrow and quick to get through problem. Where am I? And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing fowl after his 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 fowl multiply in the earth.

Day Five Wrap And Day Six Begins

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And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. We're five days in, and we have quite a lot going on. It's getting pretty lively down here, wouldn't you say? Just over the last couple of days, he's settled the seas in their appointed spot and then filled them with abundant multiplying life. He's created the skies and he filled it with abundant multiplying life. God made the land and filled it with abundant multiplying life, just plant life so far. But we can just tell what's coming next, can't we? Verse 24, and God said, Let the earth, notice it doesn't say bara, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good. This is day six. We're into day six, and God is up early and he's busy. Now, please don't think I'm irreverent. I'm not trying to make light of what has happened in God's book. Instead, I'm trying to get you to see this as a reality, as real as any reality you are now experiencing yourself.

Treating Genesis As Real History

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I think sometimes our churches make us feel like these words of God are either too sacred to try and put flesh and blood on, or too primitive to pay them any mind whatsoever. The result is that God's word is not something that can be a part of our lives in any tangible way. What God wrote here truly happened. And it happened for you and me and everyone else in the human race. And I'm trying to get you to see that, to see that, and most of all to learn from it. I mean, there's a lot to learn, isn't there? More than any of us have ever imagined, even if we're lifelong churchgoers. In my experience growing up, the ministers read and taught scripture, infrequent though that may have been, but they did so in such a way as to portray this as a very mystical thing. The way my church presented these stories from Scripture made it all seem so mysterious and fantastical. Depending on the verse or the subject, the preaching voice would go high and it would change in a very dramatic way. As if it's a dramatic scene from a far-off land full of fairy tale creatures. I mean, that really happened in my churches. There seemed to be no intention of trying to convince me of the truth of what they were teaching. I felt like I was entertained, but I didn't feel like I was being taught. And you know, I found out years later that many Catholic priests, I was raised Catholic, I learned many years later that those priests actually deny what Scripture tells us is in fact true. I can tell you that from experience. I've heard ordained Catholic priests who were also educators say that the miracles of the Bible were not really miracles, but rather, listen to me, primitive, foggy, altered by the centuries, highly nuanced by culture, recollections of natural events. They put a supernatural spin on things that were natural. For instance, the parting of the Red Sea. I was told it was not really a supernatural event. You know what I mean? When the Israelites were escaping from Egypt, you say you saw Charlton Heston split the sea, you know what I'm talking about. Well, I was told that that wasn't real, but rather a quite expected natural phenomenon that just happened at the right time. It wasn't that God exposed dry land in the middle of the sea for the escaping Israelites to walk through. Instead, it was just an extremely low tide that was occurring at the very moment that the people arrived. Not so much a miracle as, you know, really good luck. And listen, I'm not picking on the Catholic Church. There are plenty of Protestant and evangelical pastors and teachers who would have been in total agreement if they heard that same nonsense I was taught in my youth. Most of the church world has lost respect for the Bible, especially the book of Genesis.

Resisting Modern Doubt And Supporting Ministry

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Very few modern Christian churches are willing to stick their necks out for God's word, and that is why chapel ministries exist. That's why you need to spread the word about chapel ministries. That's why, if you can, you should give to chapel ministries. Because the consensus in elite society is that the Bible is it's certainly quaint and it's lovely, and to some degree it's useful. But all true? Not a chance. After all, it was written long ago when men and women were barely out of their furry animal skins and cave dwellings. Our society is it's too smart now, too advanced to believe such things. So you may think I'm being casual about scripture. I am instead showing you that I believe what it says and that it is worthy of our fullest attention. I know I say that a lot. We have a lot of tradition to buck up against. There's a very strong wave in society that's trying to tell you don't waste your time. Well, I'm fighting against that. Join in the fight with me. Well, we're in the midst of day six, but the best is yet to come.

Closing Prayer And How To Find Us

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That's where we'll pick it up next time.

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We hope this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.