Hebrew word · H7430
רָמַשׂ
romes
to creep
To move about, creep, teem: the movement of small animals close to the ground, sometimes of all animal life in general (Gen 7:21; 9:3). The noun remes means 'moving things, creatures'.
Appears 17 times in 17 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to creep, move lightly, move about, walk on all fours
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to creep, teem (of all creeping things)
1a2) to creep (of animals)
1a3) to move lightly, glide about (of water animals)
1a4) to move about (of all land animals generally)
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
To move about, creep, teem: the movement of small animals close to the ground, sometimes of all animal life in general (Gen 7:21; 9:3). The noun remes means 'moving things, creatures'.
- Against the English
'Crawls' (BSB) or 'creeps' (YLT) works. KJV's 'moveth' is broad. Because the verb agrees with 'the ground', the Hebrew pictures the ground itself teeming with life, which English renderings usually change to creatures moving 'on' the ground.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The exact phrase be-khol 'asher tirmos ha-'adamah comes again in Leviticus 20:25, in the food laws. Genesis 1:26–30 and the flood story (6:7, 20; 7:8, 14, 21–23; 8:17–19) use ramas and remes again and again.
From the study of Psalm 104:20
- Range of meaning
To move about, creep, glide, teem. Used for the movement of land animals in general, including large ones, and of sea creatures (Ps 104:25 uses the related noun remeś for the countless creatures of the sea). The related noun remeś means "moving things" or "creatures."
- Against the English
KJV and YLT have "creep," and ESV "creep about." BSB, WEB and NIV have "prowl," and NASB "prowl about." To a modern reader "creep" suggests insects, crawling or something sinister. "Prowl" fits the nightly hunting of lions (v. 21) better, but it narrows a general verb of movement to hunting.
- How it drifted
In 1611, "creep" could mean moving slowly, low and quietly, which suits animals on the move at night. Today it mostly means crawling bugs or furtive, creepy behaviour, so the KJV word now points to the wrong animals.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Genesis 1:21, 24–26, 28, 30; 7:14, 21; 9:2–3 ("every moving thing that lives shall be food for you"). Leviticus 11:44, 46. In Genesis the verb covers the whole animal world under human care.
From the study of Genesis 1:30
- Range of meaning
A participle of ramas, 'to move about, creep, scurry, teem'. It is used for small ground creatures (Gen 1:26, 28; Lev 11:44, 46), sometimes for all moving animals (Gen 9:3; Ps 104:20 'all the beasts of the forest creep about'), and for sea creatures (Ps 69:34).
- Against the English
KJV has 'creepeth'. WEB has 'creeps'. BSB has 'crawls'. All these suggest bugs or snakes. The Hebrew category is wider: the small, low-to-the-ground animals that scurry about.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In Gen 9:3 the related noun remes is broadened to 'every moving thing that lives'. Lev 11 uses this vocabulary for unclean swarming and creeping things.
Where it appears
Genesis · 10
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Genesis 1:21 הָֽרֹמֶ֡שֶׂת which creeps
So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Here: 'The one that moves about.' On land the verb is used for creeping and scurrying. In water it suggests gliding and darting, the restless movement of sea life.
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Genesis 1:26 הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ which creeps
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
Here: The verb from the same root as the noun before it: “the creeper that creeps.” The repetition is a normal Hebrew way of describing a class by its typical movement.
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Genesis 1:28 הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת which creeps
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
Here: "That moves about". It covers any creature that moves along the ground, from small animals to larger ones, not just insects or reptiles.
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Genesis 1:30 רוֹמֵ֣שׂ creeping [thing]
And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Here: A participle, 'the thing that moves about', for small creatures close to the ground: reptiles, insects, rodents and similar animals. It is the third land category of 1:24–26.
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Genesis 7:8 רֹמֵ֖שׂ [was] creeping
The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground
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Genesis 7:14 הָרֹמֵ֥שׂ which creeps
they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature.
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Genesis 7:21 הָרֹמֵ֣שׂ which crept
And every living thing that moved upon the earth perished—birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind.
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Genesis 8:17 הָרֹמֵ֥שׂ which creeps
Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground—so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it.”
Here: The verb from the same root as the preceding noun: "the creeping thing that creeps." The repeated sound gives the phrase a formal, list-like ring familiar from Genesis 1.
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Genesis 8:19 רוֹמֵ֣שׂ creeping [thing]
Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything that moves upon the earth—came out of the ark, kind by kind.
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Genesis 9:2 תִּרְמֹ֧שׂ <it> creeps
The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand.
Here: The verb is feminine and agrees with 'the ground', so the sense is probably 'all that the ground teems with' (the same wording is in Lev 20:25). It covers small animals that move low to the ground: reptiles, rodents, insects. The related noun remes comes again in 9:3 as food.
Leviticus · 3
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Leviticus 11:44 הָרֹמֵ֥שׂ which creeps
For I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any creature that crawls along the ground.
Here: 'The one creeping': describes the low, darting, ground-hugging movement of these creatures. It is also creation language (Gen 1:24–26, 'creeping things').
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Leviticus 11:46 הָרֹמֶ֖שֶׂת which moves
This is the law regarding animals, birds, all living creatures that move in the water, and all creatures that crawl along the ground.
Here: 'That moves about'. The word describes restless, gliding, low movement, here of water animals. The whole phrase 'every living being that moves' repeats Genesis 1:21 almost word for word.
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Leviticus 20:25 תִּרְמֹ֣שׂ it creeps
You are therefore to distinguish between clean and unclean animals and birds. Do not become contaminated by any animal or bird, or by anything that crawls on the ground; I have set these apart as unclean for you.
Deuteronomy · 1
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Deuteronomy 4:18 רֹמֵ֖שׂ creeping [thing]
or of any creature that crawls on the ground or fish that is in the waters below.
Psalms · 2
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Psalm 69:34 רֹמֵ֥שׂ [thing which] moves
Let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything that moves in them.
Here: A participle meaning 'moving thing'. The word is used for animals that scurry, glide or swarm. Applied to the sea, it means all the living creatures that move through the water, as in Genesis 1:21 and Psalm 104:25.
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Psalm 104:20 תִ֝רְמֹ֗שׂ it moves about
You bring darkness, and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest prowl.
Here: To move about on the ground. This is the verb for animal movement in Genesis 1, used for land creatures generally and not only small crawling things. Here it describes animals quietly prowling at night. The verb is feminine because it agrees with the feminine collective noun "beast".
Ezekiel · 1
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Ezekiel 38:20 הָרֹמֵ֣שׂ which creeps
The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that crawls upon the ground, and all mankind on the face of the earth will tremble at My presence. The mountains will be thrown down, the cliffs will collapse, and every wall will fall to the ground.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.