John Calvin Commentary Genesis 1:24

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so." — Genesis 1:24 (ASV)

Let the earth bring forth. He moves to the sixth day, on which the animals were created, and then man. Let the earth, He says, bring forth living creatures. But from where does a dead element get life? Therefore, in this respect, there is a miracle as great as if God had begun to create out of nothing those things which He commanded to proceed from the earth.

And He does not take His material from the earth because He needed it, but so that He might better combine the separate parts of the world with the universe itself. Yet it may be asked, why He does not also add His benediction here? I answer that what Moses expressed before on a similar occasion is also to be understood here, although he does not repeat it word for word.

Moreover, I say it is sufficient to signify the same thing that Moses declares animals were created according to their species: for this distribution carried with it something stable. It may even be inferred from this that the offspring of animals was included. For to what purpose do distinct species exist, unless it is so that individuals, according to their various kinds, may be multiplied?

Cattle. Some of the Hebrews distinguish in this way between “cattle” and “beasts of the earth”: that the cattle feed on herbage, but the beasts of the earth are those that eat flesh. But the Lord, a little while later, assigns herbs to both as their common food; and it may be observed that in several parts of Scripture these two words are used indiscriminately. Indeed, I do not doubt that Moses, after he had named Behemoth (cattle), added the other for fuller explanation. By ‘reptiles,’ in this place, understand those that are of an earthly nature.