And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Parallel translations
- WEB God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.
- BSB And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
- NKJV So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
- NASB Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
- NLT Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill 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 blessed Noah and his sons and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Creation's blessing is renewed in a fresh start.
Overview
This blessing echoes God's words to Adam, marking Noah as a kind of new beginning for humanity. The renewed creation mandate shows God's continued purpose for people to flourish and fill the earth. It testifies to God's grace in giving the human race a new start after judgment, a foretaste of the greater new creation in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Gen 1:28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
- Gen 9:7And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
- Gen 8:17Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
- Gen 1:22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
- Ps 128:3–4Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
- Isa 51:2Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
- Gen 10:32These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
- Gen 2:3And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
- Gen 24:60And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
- Gen 9:19These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
- Ps 112:1Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
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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 9:1 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.