And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Parallel translations
- WEB and I will multiply on you man and animal; and they shall increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited after your former estate, and you will do better than at your beginnings: and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
- BSB I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful. I will make you as inhabited as you once were, and I will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
- NKJV I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young; I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
- NASB I will multiply on you people and animals, and they will increase and be fruitful; and I will populate you as you were previously, and treat you better than at the beginning. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
- NLT I will increase not only the people, but also your animals. O mountains of Israel, I will bring people to live on you once again. I will make you even more prosperous than you were before. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will multiply both people and animals on the land, prospering it beyond its former state, so that they know He is the LORD. Restoration surpasses the original.
Overview
Increase of 'man and animal' and being 'fruitful' echoes the creation blessing (Gen. 1:28). God pledges to make the land 'better than at your beginnings'—restoration that exceeds what was lost. The goal again is recognition: 'you shall know that I am Yahweh.' God's redemptive work does not merely repair; it surpasses, pointing to the greater glory of the new creation in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 24
- Jer 33:12Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.
- Jer 23:5–8Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
- Mic 7:14Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
- Jer 31:27Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.
- Ezek 37:13And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
- Jer 30:18Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof.
- Ezek 16:55When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.
- Job 42:12So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
- Amos 9:15And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.
- Hos 2:20I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.
- Ezek 36:35And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.
- Zech 8:11–15But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts.
- Heb 11:40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
- Isa 52:4–6For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
- Obad 1:19–21And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
- Heb 8:8–13For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
- Isa 54:7–10For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
- Isa 30:26Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
- Joel 3:18–21And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim.
- Hag 2:6–9For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
- Jer 31:38–40Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.
- 1 Jn 5:20And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
- Ezek 37:6And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
- Ezek 35:9I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 36:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.