Genesis 2:20
19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field, but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh.
Job 12:7
6 But the tents of robbers are peaceful, and those who provoke God are confident—who carry their god in their hands. 7 “But now, ask the animals and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you. 8 Or speak to the earth and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea declare to you. 9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
Notes and References
"... All human societies group organisms that share certain attributes into labeled taxa of varying degrees of specificity to form a classification system. Thus, a society will divide its entire plant or animal inventory into several primary level taxa (e.g., animals → mammals / fish / birds / invertebrates). These primary level taxa are subdivided into several, more exclusive secondary level taxa (e.g., invertebrates → insects / crustaceans / molluscs), some or all of which are subdivided into several, more exclusive tertiary level taxa (e.g., molluscs → clams / mussels / oysters), and so forth. The process of subdivision ends in a terminal level of specificity beyond which categoric distinctions are no longer made ... An Israelite who was looking at the world through the lens of the tripartite model would have seen it as an articulated totality – a single, broad, physical expanse having three sections. An Israelite who was looking at the world in this way would have seen and taken note of all three sections of the world. Thus, the land and its animals, the air and its animals, and the water and its animals would have all been situated in the foreground of the person’s perception of the world and their thoughts about it ..."
Whitekettle, Richard The Case of the Missing Fish: Perception, Thought, and the Zoological/Physical Structure of the World in Ancient Israel (pp. 25-47) Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2024