Notes On Genesis #5: Man's Dominion Over The Earth

In the beginning "...God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth (Gen. 1:26)."

...Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen. 1:28).”

And after the Great Flood where the whole world was destroyed, but for eight people (Noah and his wife, and their sons and their wives) and a boat-full of animals, GOD again gave man rule over HIS creation. In Genesis 9:2 it reads, "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand."

One does have to marvel, as David did, that the Almighty Creator saw fit to make it man's responsibility to care for the earth and its animal inhabitants. Psalm 8:
4.What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
5.For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
6.You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
7.All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field,
8.The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
9.O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

It's amazing that we are so fearless as to tread near the lion, the alligator and other seemingly fearsome creatures (like python snakes, for example). It's even more amazing that some of us have mastered a real relationship with these animals (think of the late Steve Irwin, for example). You see it on Animal Planet all the time...we're not afraid of chimps, snakes, rhinos or elephants -- it's like we actually have put "all things under (our) feet."

As for all of the endangered animals, extinct animals and the general cruelty and neglect on our parts toward and of animals...humanity as a whole doesn't seem to be all together on this subject.

You don't have to be a genius or scholar to know that all of creation must be treated with some degree of respect. If animals have blood and flesh and bones as we do, then it goes to reason that they must also feel pain. So why do people beat their pets or even starve them?

And what is so corrupt in us that some of us even practice perversion by having sex with animals? Horses, dogs and who knows what else? And the thing that strikes me is that bestiality isn't 'new' and it's even addressed in the Holy Bible passages about sexual morality.

It state sin Lev. 18 (and other places):
23.Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion.
24.‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you.

What is wrong with us?! Intercourse with an animal?



As for the earth itself...with all the hoopla about global warming and pollution, I think I can guess how we're doing in that department. And whether or not you believe in global warming, you do have to admit that we humans don't exactly keep the earth, its atmosphere or its water very clean.

But one thing I do wonder -- would the earth naturally 'die off' anyway? Was the earth made to last forever? Or is it because of the destructive and sinful nature of man that it also became corruptible? I know the Holy Bible says earth will pass away (literally) and that there will be a new earth... perhaps the incorruptible one.

Anyway, just thinking out loud...


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