Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease.
Parallel translations
- WEB Take wives, and father sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there, and don’t be diminished.
- KJV Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.
- BSB Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease.
- NKJV Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished.
- NLT Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away!
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 instructs the exiles to marry, have children, and multiply in Babylon. Life and covenant continuity are to go on even in exile.
Overview
By forming families and increasing in number, the exiles would preserve the covenant community through the long captivity. This was an act of hope, trusting that God had a future for His people. It countered despair that might have led them to give up on life and lineage. God's command to flourish in exile reflects His ongoing purpose to bring forth the promised seed, ultimately fulfilled in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Judg 12:9He had thirty sons; and thirty daughters he sent outside his clan, and thirty daughters he brought in from outside his clan for his sons. He judged Israel seven years.
- Gen 28:1–4Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him, “You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.
- Gen 24:51Behold, Rebekah is before you. Take her, and go, and let her be your master’s son’s wife, as Yahweh has spoken.”
- Gen 21:21He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
- Gen 29:19Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you, than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me.”
- Gen 24:3–4I will make you swear by Yahweh, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live.
- 1 Tim 5:14I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household, and give no occasion to the adversary for insulting.
- Jer 16:2–4“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”
- 1 Cor 7:36–38But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the flower of her age, and if need so requires, let him do what he desires. He doesn’t sin. Let them marry.
- Judg 1:12–14Caleb said, “I will give Achsah my daughter as wife to the man who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it.”
- Judg 14:2He came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me as my wife.”
- Gen 9:7Be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it.”
- Gen 34:4Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, “Get me this young lady as a wife.”
- Gen 1:27–28God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
- Gen 24:60They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, “Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.”
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 29:6 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.