What Does Genesis 1:28 Mean?
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.THE KEY
Fruitfulness and forceful rule arrive together: the blessing that fills the earth also commands humanity to bring it under control.
THE MEANING
You are included in humanity addressed as blessed and charged with fruitfulness, increase, and filling the earth. The same utterance gives humanity dominion over other living creatures and commands it to subdue the earth, holding generative life and forceful rule together.
THE ROOT
וְכִבְשֻׁהָ
vekhibshuha
GROWS FROM
כבש
kavash
subdue, bring under control
“tread it under your foot” in this verse is vekhibshuha. The root also yields a word for a conqueror and a verb for bringing something under authority. Here it keeps its force: the earth is to be brought under human control, while other living creatures are placed under human dominion.
ALSO GROWS
koveish: one who subdues or conquers
כּוֹבֵשׁ
This form names the agent who brings something under control, clarifying the force carried by the command.
hikhbish: to subject or bring under authority
הִכְבִּישׁ
This form makes explicit the act of placing something under another’s authority.
פְּרוּ
peru
GROWS FROM
פרה
parah
bear fruit, become fruitful
“Bear fruit” in this verse is peru. The root names bearing fruit itself, while its causative form can mean making fruitful. Here the imperative stands beside “multiply,” so the verse pictures life bearing outward and becoming many.
ALSO GROWS
peri: fruit
פְּרִי
The noun makes the root’s image concrete: fruitfulness is life-bearing.
hifrah: made fruitful, caused to bear fruit
הִפְרָה
This causative form shows the same root expressing the bringing forth of fruitfulness.
מִלְאוּ
mil'u
GROWS FROM
מלא
male
fill, be full
“fill” in this verse is mil'u. One root holds the action of filling and the state of fullness. In this sequence, fruitfulness and increase move toward a land filled with life.
ALSO GROWS
male: full, filled
מָלֵא
This form names the state that the command to fill brings about.
melo: fullness
מְלֹא
This noun carries the same root into the condition of being filled.
THE PATTERN
The increase of life is joined to God’s blessing and gift, while human work participates in its unfolding.
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Bear fruit, and multiply, and fill the earth.I planted, Apollos gave to drink, but God made it grow.THE THREAD
And I will make you bear fruit exceedingly, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come out of you.The Hebrew root behind “be fruitful” returns in the promise, “I will make thee exceeding fruitful.” The same root opens from the command to bear fruit into the emergence of nations and generations.
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