Genesis 9:1

God’s covenant with all life

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

2 All of the animals on the earth will fear you and dread you—all the birds in the skies, everything crawling on the ground, and all of the sea's fish. They are in your power.

3 Everything that lives and moves will be your food. Just as I gave you the green grasses, I now give you everything.

4 However, you must not eat meat with its life, its blood, in it.

5 I will surely demand your blood for a human life, from every living thing I will demand it. From humans, from a man for his brother, I will demand something for a human life.