gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
blessed
וַיְבָ֣רֶךְvay.Va.rekh
H1288
to kneel · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Noah
נֹ֖חַNo.ach
H5146
Noach · proper noun, a man's name
sons
בָּנָ֑יוba.Nav
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
said
וַיֹּ֧אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
fruitful
פְּר֥וּpe.Ru
H6509
to bear fruit (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
multiply
וּרְב֖וּu.re.Vu
H7235
to increase (in whatever respect) · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
replenish
וּמִלְא֥וּu.mil.'U
H4390
to fill or (intransitively) be full of · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
earth
הָאָֽרֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the…
Genesis 9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Genesis 8:17 Bring 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 cree…
Genesis 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Psalms 128:3-4 Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
Isaiah 51:2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
Genesis 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Genesis 10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth af…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 9:1-7
We read, in the close of the foregoing chapter, the very kind things which God said in his heart, concerning the remnant of mankind which was now left to be the seed of a new world. Now here we have these kind things spoken to them. In general, God blessed Noah and his sons (Gen 9:1), that is, he assured them of his good-will to them and his gracious intentions concerning them. This follows from what he said in his heart. Note, All God's promises of good flow from his purposes of love and the counsels of his own will. See Eph 1:11, Eph 3:11, and compare Jer 29:11. I know the thoughts that I think towards you. We read (Gen 8:20) how Noah blessed God, by his altar and sacrifice. Now here we fi…
God blessed Noah - Even the increase of families, which appears to depend on merely natural means, and sometimes fortuitous circumstances, is all of God. It is by his power and wisdom that the human being is formed, and it is by his providence alone that man is supported and preserved.
John Gill on 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 speci…
And God blessed Noah. We hence infer with what great fear Noah had been dejected, because God, so often and at such length, proceeds to encourage him. For when Moses here says, that God blessed Noah and his sons, he does not simply mean that the favor of fruitfulness was restored to them; but that, at the same time, the design of God concerning the new restitution of the world was revealed unto them. For to the blessing itself is added the voice of God by which he addresses them. We know that brute animals produce offspring in no other way than by the blessing of God; but Moses here commemorates a privilege which belongs only to men. Therefore, lest those four men and their wives, seized wit…
The Church Fathers
And the Lord blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hands are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all; but flesh with the blood thereof shall ye not eat.
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon all animals of the earth, and upon all the birds of the air, with everything that moves upon the ground. All the fish of the sea are handed over to you, and everything that moves and lives shall be food for you; just as I gave you green plants, I give you everything. It is clear from the text that the second age of the world, like the first and the beginnings of others, is blessed by the Lord. Noah is blessed with his sons, that is, with all those who are born of his flesh and endowed with faith and obedience, demonstrating truly that they are his sons; for his progeny is commanded to fill the earth, as is evident that it has come to pass; for men are said to be a terror to all the animals of the earth and the birds of the air; for these, together with the fishes, are permitted to be eaten, as they were given herbs to eat up to the time of the flood. Where it is noted that since their terror and dread is commanded to be over the animals, certainly it is prohibited from being over men. For to desire to be feared by an equal is manifestly to be proud contrary to nature; and yet it is necessary that governors be feared by their subjects when they find that God is least feared by them. For in that they demand fear from those living perversely, they dominate not as men, but as animals, because evidently insofar as the subjects are beastly, insofar they ought also to lie under fear. According to the spiritual understanding, however, Noah is blessed with his sons, namely our Lord and Savior with the apostles, whom he also deigned to call sons, saying: Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them (Matt. 9:15). God the Father commanded them to grow and multiply over the whole world, when the Lord said to his disciples: Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:14), that is, to all nations. For all the commands of the Lord and Savior are indeed those of the Father. He himself said: What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me (John 12:50). He subjected all animals that move on the earth, all the birds of the air, and all the fish of the sea to their dominion when he said: Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you…
Dictionary and topics
Covenant — A contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived from a root which means “to cut,” and hence a covenant is a…
Shem — A name; renown, the first mentioned of the sons of Noah (Gen. 5:32; 6:10). He was probably the eldest of Noah’s sons. The words “brother of Japheth the elder” in Gen. 10:21 are more correctly…
Benedictions · .Upon Noah — .Upon Noah
Marriage · Designed for: Increasing the human population — Designed for: Increasing the human population
Propagation · Of species, enjoined — Of species, enjoined
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
God’s first post-flood speech opens and closes with blessing (9:1, 7). In it, human and animal relationships are again defined, with some modification of the original created order. The sanctity of life is given special focus.
9:1 Be fruitful and multiply: The blessing and mandate first given to Adam (1:28) are now reissued to Noah, the “Adam” of the newly cleansed world in need of repopulation.
