Genesis 9:1

God’s Covenant with Noah and Humankind

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "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 And fear of you and dread of you shall be upon every animal of the earth, and on every bird of heaven, [and] on everything that moves upon the ground, and on all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they shall be given.

3 Every moving thing that lives shall be for you as food. As [I gave] the green plants to you, I have [now] given you everything.

4 Only you shall not eat {raw flesh with blood in it}.

5 And {your lifeblood} I will require; from {every animal} I will require it. And from the hand of humankind, from the hand of [each] man to his brother I will require the life of humankind.