Reference: Creeping Things
Hastings
In the English Version this term is the tr of two distinct words, which have no etymological connexion, and in usage are not synonymous. The Hebrew words are remes and sherets. It is unfortunate that the latter term is tr 'creeping thing,' for the root means to swarm. It includes both terrestrial and aquatic animals which appear in great swarms; in Ge 1:20 it refers to the creatures that teem in the waters, while in other passages it includes insects, as locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers (Le 11:20-23), together with the smaller quadrupeds as the weasel and mouse, as well as reptiles proper (Le 11:29-31). The verb is used of frogs (Ex 8:3). Etymologically remes signifies that which glides or creeps, and for its usage the two crucial passages are Ge 1:24 and 1Ki 4:33. In the latter the entire animal kingdom is popularly divided into four classes: beasts, birds, creeping things, and fishes (cf. Ho 2:18). In Ge 1:24 the land animals are put into three groups: cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth. By eliminating the first and third classes, which respectively include domesticated quadrupeds, and the wild animals, we see that the expression 'creeping things' is, roughly speaking, equivalent to our term 'reptiles,' exclusive of those which are aquatic. Delitzsch defines remes as 'the smaller creeping animals that keep close to the earth'; Dillmann as creatures 'which move along the ground either without feet or with imperceptible feet.' From this discussion it is evident that the two are not interchangeable terms. Remes has also a wider signification: in Ps 104:25 it is used of marine animals, in Ge 9:3 (English Version 'moving thing') it includes all living creatures. See, further, the careful discussion by Professor Driver in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible i. 517 f.
James A. Kelso.