Here comes movement. Here comes noise. The silence is broken. Listen—there are so many new sounds.
“And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.’ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20-23)
Beneath the waves, whales sing their haunting songs that last ten to twenty minutes and travel for miles through the deep. Dolphins communicate in clicks and whistles. Toads boom like foghorns, while pistol shrimp snap their specialised claws with sharp cracks like gunshots. The underwater world becomes a constant chorus of whistles and songs.
Above the surface, the soundscape shifts entirely. Nightingales weave complex melodies with over two hundred distinct phrases. Birds trill and chirp. Geese honk. Eagles release whistling screams. Hawks pierce the air with their cries. Parrots squawk and crows caw. And mockingbirds mimic everything around them.
Though not explicitly mentioned in the text, insects are implied within the broader category of “every living thing that moves.” Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings together. Grasshoppers create buzzing, crackling sounds in a similar fashion. Bees hum as they work.
There’s more beautiful sounds of course. Do you hear them?
During the pandemic, when air traffic ceased and transport fell silent, when even human voices disappeared from the streets, something remarkable happened. Walking into your garden, you could hear a sound rarely noticed before: the sound of creation itself, the sound of the fifth day.
What has happened to our lives when we cannot listen to the sounds of the fifth day?
There is one more thing to note about the fifth day—the power and purpose of blessing. “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” God does not simply create and move on. He speaks life and multiplication over His creatures. He desires them to flourish, to spread, to fill their habitats completely.
There is generosity in this blessing. God creates with open hands, calling forth not merely enough life, but teeming, abundant, overflowing life.
Why did He bless them? Because He saw that it was good.
God looks at what He has made and declares it not merely functional or adequate, but good. This reveals something profound about how God views the natural world. The creatures of sea and sky have value not because of what they do for us, but because God made them and delights in them.
They were here before us, and so we are called to steward them, not dominate them. The life in the seas and sky matters to God. He wants His creation to flourish, so we had better care for it well.
Importantly, today, try and listen to the sounds of your world that existed before you did. They are still there.
Missions Paul 