And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. - Genesis 1:24
Cosmology
Adam’s first job was to name the animals in the Garden of Eden, a clear case of lowering heaven into the earth. Heaven’s wind becomes Adam’s breath and serves as a vehicle to communicate between spiritual and corporeal realities. With it, Adam is able to assign a spiritual identity to the animals of the world. Language separates humans from animals in biblical cosmology. Adam alone can unite spiritual principles and corporeal facts with language through his spirit/breath. Naming animals is the ultimate proof of Adam’s God-given authority because it makes him the very source of their identity.
(The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis - A Commentary by Matthieu Pageau, 2018. Pages 59-61)
The Story of Beasts
Creation
Beasts were created on the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31) God saw the man needed a helper, and He formed every beast and bird out of the ground to see what man would call them but found no helper fit for him. Whatever the man called them was their name.
Preservation During the Flood
7 days before the flood waters came, the Lord told Noah to go into the ark with his household and 7 pairs of each clean animal, 1 pair of each unclean animal, and 7 pairs of each bird.
"Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."
During the flood, all flesh died apart from those who were with Noah in the ark.
The beasts leave the ark
God remembered the beasts and all the livestock that were with Noah in the ark and closed the deep's fountains and heaven's windows and restrained the rain so that the waters receded.
In the 27th day of the 2nd month of Noah's 601st year, the earth had dried out and God told Noah, "Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." Noah's family and every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.
(Genesis 8)
God resolves to never again strike down every living creature as He had done
Noah offered burnt offerings of every clean animal and every clean bird, and the pleasing aroma led the Lord to say in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
(Genesis 8)
God changes man's relationship to beast
God placed the dread of man upon every beast, bird, and fish and gave all of them to man as food. However, he must not eat flesh with its blood.
For man's lifeblood, He will require a reckoning, when it is taken by man or beast.
(Genesis 9)
God establishes a covenant with Noah and every living creature
God also established his covenant with Noah and his offspring, as well as with every living thing from the ark. "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
(Genesis 9)