Leupold Genesis part 63 verse 30

30. So it will also be observed that the directions that obtain for the other living creatures are not exhaustive. Fish are not mentioned. But, no doubt, this word was merely to inform man in reference to the creatures with which he had the more immediate contact. So all living creatures are summed up in this verse in three classes: wild beasts of the earth, birds, and reptiles--and, summing up still more, comes the closing phrase applicable to all, "in which there is a living soul." The food, however, that by God's ordinance is appointed for all these is described as "all the green herbs." It is taken, therefore, from the second of the three classes of v. 11 and the restrictive modifier preceding yereg, yielding the expression "greenness of herb," which we have rendered "the green herbs." That cannot be identical with everything that comes under the class of "herbs." Meek, therefore, renders quite appropriately "all the green plants." The verb of the main clause of this verse is missing; "I have given" is best supplied from the preceding verse.

In brief, this verse is an indication of the perfect harmony prevailing in the animal world. No beast preyed upon the other. Rapacious and ferocious wild beasts did not yet exist. This verse, then, indicates very briefly for this chapter what is unfolded at length in chapter two, that a paradise-like state prevailed at creation.

Skinner pronounces v. 29.and 30 to be an indication of one of the sources which P worked into his account, because these verses, as he says, "differ significantly in their phraseology from the preceding sections.". The trifling difference of an abbreviated summary is exaggerated into what is said to "differ significantly." The critics need far more substantial arguments than untenable exaggerations. The same author claims that we have in these verses an "enrichment of the creation story by the independent and widespread myth of the Golden Age." Why, pray, cannot the simple unadorned account merely be a narrative of things as they actually transpired? Answer: the critics have decreed that such accounts cannot exist; all such narratives must be patchwork in which a generous measure of myth has been incorporated. But decreeing that it must be as the critics surmise is not proof. We refuse to be intimidated by claims which lack actual substance.

Let the student of the original note in v. 29 an instance where the relative is not separated from its adverbial term belonging to it 'asher-bo (K. S. 58).