Genesis 9:1

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fertile, increase in number, 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 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fertile, increase in number, and fill the earth.

2 All the wild animals and all the birds will fear you and be terrified of you. Every creature that crawls on the ground and all the fish in the sea have been put under your control.

3 Everything that lives and moves will be your food. I gave you green plants as food; I now give you everything else.

4 "But you are not to eat meat with blood in it. (Blood is life.)

5 In addition, I will demand your blood for your life. I will demand it from any animal or from any person. I will demand the life of any person [who kills] another person.