God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
Parallel translations
- KJV And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
- BSB Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
- NKJV And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
- NASB God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
- NLT Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
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 blesses the creatures to be fruitful and fill sea and sky. Blessing and fruitfulness are God's gracious gifts to his living world.
Overview
For the first time God pronounces a blessing, empowering the sea and air creatures to multiply and fill their domains. This blessing reveals a God who not only makes life but generously sustains and increases it. The command to be fruitful anticipates the same blessing soon given to humanity, marking fruitfulness as part of God's good design.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Gen 8:17Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”
- Job 40:15“See now, behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass as an ox.
- Ps 107:38He blesses them also, so that they are multiplied greatly. He doesn’t allow their livestock to decrease.
- Gen 1:28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
- Gen 35:11God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your body.
- Job 42:12So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.
- Gen 9:1God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.
- Lev 26:9“‘I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
- Prov 10:22Yahweh’s blessing brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.
- Gen 30:30For it was little which you had before I came, and it has increased to a multitude. Yahweh has blessed you wherever I turned. Now when will I provide for my own house also?”
- Ps 128:3Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.
- Ps 144:13–14Our barns are full, filled with all kinds of provision. Our sheep produce thousands and ten thousands in our fields.
- Ps 107:31Let them praise Yahweh for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds for the children of men!
- Gen 30:27Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have divined that Yahweh has blessed me for your sake.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Lay
The single best free starting point for Genesis 1–11 — clear, visual, and faithful to the literary design.
Pastoral
The beloved devotional-pastoral classic, free and public domain — warm, quotable, verse by verse.
Commentaries & study tools
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The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 1:22 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.