Bible Dictionary
CREEPING THING
A creeping thing is a small creature that crawls, creeps, or swarms upon the earth. The biblical term includes various insects and other small animals, some of which were classified as unclean under Israel’s law.
Definition
A creeping thing is a small creature that creeps, crawls, or swarms upon the earth. The biblical terms can include insects and other small animals and are used without a sharp distinction between creeping and swarming creatures.
Biblical Usage
Creeping things appear in the creation and Flood accounts, in laws concerning unclean animals, and in Peter’s vision. Winged and wingless creeping things were generally unclean, with an exception for certain locusts that leap using legs above their feet.
Historical Background
The Hebrew roots express either creeping or swarming, while the Greek term in Peter’s vision is the equivalent of these Hebrew words.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>krep'-ing (remes, sherets; herpeton): Remes and sherets, with the root verbs ramas and sharats, are used without any sharp distinction for insects and other small creatures. Ramas means clearly "to creep," and is used even of the beasts of the forest (Ps 104:20), while sharats is rather "to swarm." But in at least one passage (Le 11:44), we have the noun, sherets, with the verb ramas; "with any manner of creeping thing that moveth upon the earth." The principal passages where these words occur are the accounts of the Creation and the Flood and the references to unclean animals in Le and in the vision of Peter. In the last we have the word herpeton as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew words (Ac 10:12). Winged creeping things (sherets ha-`oph, Le 11:20 ff), as well as the wingless, are unclean, but an exception is made in favor of the locusts, "which have legs above their feet, where-with to leap upon the earth."</p><p>See INSECTS; LOCUST.</p><p>Alfred Ely Day</p>