@Susan ^7:21 is variously translated as "swarming creatures" (older translations) or "creeping creatures" (news ones). So if that is what the OP wanted to know, if would be a bit more interesting of a question (but only a bit - the answer is presumably a shift in the English word's meaning)

@ThaddeusB Right, thanks for pointing that out. I updated the answer to address that. Seems there is some overlap both directions in the sense of the Hebrew terms.

@ThaddeusB vice versa, right?

@Susan Yes, my bad - swarming is the newer translation for 7:21.

@ThaddeusB Old ones may also be the fault of the Vulgate: reptilium quae reptant.

As an aside, YLT has the bizarre "all the teeming things which are teeming on the earth" - I have no idea what that means in English :) (I only know teeming as "overflowing")

@ThaddeusB Interesting, yes, teeming I think it is. That’s mentioned in the lexicons also. It’s a nice way to think about the range of the word because that one takes the grammatical subject “earth” (or whatever has that semantic position), which the term šrṣ does at times (e.g. Gen 1:20-21, Ps 105:30), though it flips back and forth.

Though the YLT renders it with the animals as the subject I see, which isn’t consistent with modern usage.

The earth was teeming with animals.

@ThaddeusB I don’t even see the YLT way of using it as an option in English dictionaries. Hm.

@Susan Apparently teeming used to also mean fertile/prolific, which makes the sentence make sense

well makes it make sense if you flip between the two meanings anyway; not really sure that is what was intended though

Yah, the verb is still weird: teeming things which are ?teeming on the earth

Based on the 1828 and 1913 Webster's Dictionaries, I think it probably is supposed to mean "all the prolific things bringing forth young"

I feel like that would make it a sort of summary statement like "all the birds, livestock, wild beats, all the animals , and the men too" (a kind of get this sense with "swarming" too as long as the "and" is left out, e.g. ESV) as oppose to it being a different class of animals (if it is a class of animals, it is probably small creatures/insects, I think)

@susan would taking it is a sort of "summary statement" (making it a literary device of emphasis) be possible grammatically?

@ThaddeusB Sorry, what verse are you referring to?

@Susan the "all the creeping/swarming/teeming" creatures of 7:21

@ThaddeusB Oh, gotcha. You mean taking “all swarming things” as appositional (a restatement, i.e., i.e. :-)) rather than in series with the list earlier in the verse?

@Susan yes, exactly. I've never taken it that way, but Young's weirdness got me thinking... :)

If you judge it to be at least possible, I may make it a separate SE question. :)

@ThaddeusB I don’t think so, because I wouldn’t expect it to be connected with the conjunction “and” that way. (The ESV appropriately leaves it out since Hebrew has way too many “ands” for English, but I don’t think it would have one there if it were appositional that way.)

I’m a little confused about the Hebrew though because it literally says, “all flesh died that creeped (!) on the earth in (presumably among) the bird and in the livestock and in the beast and in all of the swarming thing that is swarming....” (presumably all collective singulars). I’ll see if I can figure out how the preposition is being used there, though not right now.

@Susan Very good - mull it over and let me know what you decide. Its obviously not important for interpretation, just a curious construction (why "the swarming thing that is swarming" instead of just "the swarming thing")

@ThaddeusB Just a note on that last part - “a swarming thing that is swarming” is a lot less awkward in Hebrew. It loves to juxtapose a cognate noun/verb like that, though more often as an accusative (“he dreamed a dream”). Doing it with a participial relative clause like that isn’t a construction I know specifically, but the redundancy is definitely more tolerable in Hebrew. Funny how it manages to be a lot more compact than English despite that.

This is related to your question about a “summary statement” because it entails that “all flesh” (rather than “the swarmers”) is the summary. “Expired” is the verbal action, and birds, cattle, beasts, and swarmers specify the realm to which the expiration “obtains”. My grammar actually gives this example, so I’m reasonably confident about that.

All flesh expired... *that is*, birds and cattle and beasts and all the swarmers. -Waltke/O'Connor

Of course, it still may be worthwhile asking, but I think that’s the gist of the answer.

That was a fun one, thanks. :-)

@ThaddeusB One more thought: the reason for “the swarming thing that is swarming” may have to do with the “etymologizing”, if HALOT is right about that. (See note 2 in my answer.) I suppose you need the -reṣ three times to define a “pattern”.

@ThaddeusB @Susan Worth pondering Jonah 1:16 in this regard. Not an isolated example by any means!

@Davïd I don’t understand what you’re referring to.

@Susan From @ThaddeusB: just a curious construction (why "the swarming thing that is swarming" instead of just "the swarming thing") - but you get something like that 3x in Jon 1:16. Or maybe I'm missing the point! :) Just leaning into your point really.

I'll crawl back under my rock now!

@Davïd Please don’t. I did find the sojourners who are sojourning and the prophets who are prophesying, and the creepers who are creeping, all of which I like. Seems to be a construction with a predilection for a few choice lexemes - or, I guess, roots.