The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK NINE 71 arriving at my opinion; and if he will then be able to set forth a more probable theory, I must not only not oppose him but must even congratulate him.
2. A reader may be puzzled because the sacred writer did not say, "Again God formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and from the waters all the birds of heaven," but as if God had formed both kinds from the earth, he said, And again God formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven.
Now, there are two ways in which this statement can be understood. First, the writer may simply have not mentioned the material out of which God formed the birds of heaven because the reader would assume, without any explicit mention, that God is not supposed to have formed both kinds from the earth but only the beasts of the field, and thus we shall understand, even when Scripture is silent, what material it was from which God formed the birds of heaven in so far as we know that they have been produced from the waters in the original creation of the causal reasons.* Another way to understand the text is to assume that the word "earth" has been used in its broadest sense as including the waters, as is done in the Psalm where, after exhorting the heavenly beings to voice their praises, the Psalmist turns to earth and says, Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all you deeps,+ without saying later, "Praise the Lord from the waters." It is there> that all the deeps are, although they praise the Lord from the earth. And it is there also that all the creeping creatures and all the winged creatures are, and yet they praise the Lord from the earth. On the basis of this very broad meaning of the word "earth," in which it is used in reference to the whole world in the words God who made heaven and earth, whatever has been created from either dry land® or from the waters is rightly understood to have been created from the earth.