Genesis 9:1

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ¹"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Genesis 9:1 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 9:1

And God blessed Noah and his sons
With temporal blessings, not spiritual ones; for though some of them were blessed with such, yet not all, particularly Ham:

and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth;
depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam, a power and faculty of propagating his species, which was as necessary now as then, since there were so few of the human race left in the world; and the renewal of this grant was the rather necessary, if, as has been observed, Noah and his sons were restrained from cohabiting with their wives while in the ark: but though these words are not an express command for the propagation of their species, yet more than a bare permission, at least they are a direction and instruction to it, and even carry in them a promise of fruitfulness, that they should multiply and increase, which was very needful at this time.

Genesis 9:1 In-Context

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.

3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Cross References

• 1. Genesis 1:22, 28; Genesis 8:17