StrongerBible

remes

רֶמֶשׂ

HebrewH7431creeping thing, moving thing

Appears 17 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 1:24Gen 1:25Gen 1:26Gen 6:7Gen 6:20Gen 7:14Gen 7:23Gen 8:17Gen 8:19Gen 9:31Ki 4:33(5:13)Psa 104:25Psa 148:10Ezk 8:10Hos 2:18(20)
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeREH-mesnoun

What remes means

the moving creatures: small animals named for how they go, gliding or scurrying low to the ground

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word picks out a group of animals not by what they are but by how they move. It comes from a verb that means to creep, glide, or stir, the kind of low, brushing, scurrying motion a small creature makes close to a surface. So the noun gathers up "the moving ones," the little animals that get about by creeping rather than by walking tall or flying. English Bibles almost always say "creeping things," which is close but a bit narrow; "the moving fauna" or "things that go low" catches the idea better.

In the creation account the word has a fixed, almost technical place: it names the small ground-animals as one of three kinds of land creature, set beside the livestock and the larger wild beasts. The same tidy listing turns up wherever the Bible surveys the animal world, for instance in the note about Solomon's knowledge of nature, or in the songs that call every kind of creature to praise God.

The word can also stretch well past that narrow slot. After the flood it widens to cover every living thing that moves, when God gives "every moving thing that lives" to people for food. In poetry it reaches further still: it can name the countless small creatures swarming in the sea, and in one stark image it pictures human beings reduced to creatures that creep along with no one to rule them. Across all these uses the thread that holds is the motion, not the species: the word keeps meaning "the ones that move low," whether they are insects on the soil or shoals in the ocean.

Nuances

1athe small ground-animals as one fixed class of land creature, listed beside the livestock and the wild beasts
Gen 1:24Gen 1:25Gen 1:261Ki 4:33(5:13)Psa 148:10Ezk 8:10Ezk 38:20Hos 2:18(20)
1bthe small creeping animals named in the running lists of the flood account, gathered with people, livestock, and birds
Gen 6:7Gen 6:20Gen 7:14Gen 7:23Gen 8:17Gen 8:19
1cthe widened sense: every living thing that moves, the whole class of motile animals
Gen 9:3
1dthe maximal poetic reach: creatures that move beyond the land, including the swarming life of the sea, and humanity itself pictured as creeping things
Psa 104:25Hab 1:14

What scholars say about remes

The noun is a deverbal collective from the root רמשׂ, whose core sense is low-amplitude gliding or creeping motion; the lexica (BDB, HALOT, Gesenius18, DCH) and the theological dictionaries (TWOT, NIDOTTE, TDOT) converge on "creeping/moving things," classifying creatures by gait rather than by zoological type. The comparative-Semitic evidence supports a kinetic rather than taxonomic core: Arabic رمش ("flutter, brush; eyelash") is the cleanest cognate, and Akkadian nammaštû ("moving creatures, wildlife") supplies the same verb-to-collective-noun pattern and the same conceptual category of "moving fauna," though the initial n/r correspondence is irregular and HALOT treats it as a semantic parallel rather than a guaranteed cognate (Fronzaroli; Kogan; Tawil). Joüon's 1940 study and Milgrom's Leviticus volume established the now-codified distinction from שֶׁרֶץ: שֶׁרֶץ profiles teeming reproduction, רֶמֶשׂ profiles locomotion, the two intersecting referentially but encoding different features. The principal modern debate (Skinner, Cassuto, Sarna, Wenham vs. Westermann, Mark Smith; Wenham/Douglas vs. Milgrom) is about why the Priestly writer uses the term and how the creation taxonomy relates to the Levitical purity grid, not about the lexeme's meaning; most agree it is a kinetic collective whose default referent in Genesis 1 is small ground-fauna but whose range genuinely extends to aquatic life (Ps 104:25) and to all motile animals (Gen 9:3).

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), 943alexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, III, 1245-1246, s.vv. רָמַשׂ / רֶמֶשׂlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 7 (Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), 547-548lexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch uber das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (Springer, 2013), 1248blexicon
  • Harris, Archer, Waltke (eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody, 1980), vol. 2, 850-851, #2177theological-dictionary
  • Willem A. VanGemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (Zondervan, 1997), vol. 3, G/K 8253-8254theological-dictionary
  • Botterweck, Ringgren, Fabry (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 13 (Eerdmans, 2004), s.v. רמשׂtheological-dictionary
  • Paul Jouon, "Les «reptiles» šèrès et rèmès et les verbes «ramper» correspondants šārats et rāmas en hébreu," Biblica 21 (1940): 152-158article
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, AB 3 (Doubleday, 1991), 656-736commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WBC 1 (Word, 1987), 25-27commentary
  • Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, trans. J. J. Scullion (Fortress, 1984), 142-148commentary
  • Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Fortress, 2010), 90-105monograph
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (JPS, 1989), ad Gen 1:24-25commentary
  • Pelio Fronzaroli, "Studi sul lessico comune semitico VI: La natura selvaggia," Rendiconti Lincei 24 (1968): 285-320article
  • Leonid Kogan, "Observations on Proto-Semitic Vocalism," Aula Orientalis 23 (2005): 131-167article

All attested forms of רֶמֶשׂ

m s absolute

רֶמֶשׂ

Gen 1:24, Gen 1:26, Gen 6:7, Gen 7:14, Gen 7:23, Gen 8:17, Gen 8:19, Gen 9:3

m s construct

רֶמֶשׂ

Gen 1:25, Gen 6:20, Hos 2:18