What Does Genesis 1:22 Mean in the King James?
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The creatures are blessed before they multiply: abundance begins as a gift, not a prize they must earn.
THE MEANING
The living world still shows abundance as a capacity received: creatures fill the waters and earth according to the life spoken over them. Fruitfulness unfolds through increase, with each kind inhabiting its place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that abundance must be manufactured alone gives way to the verse’s picture of fruitfulness unfolding within a spoken blessing.
THE ROOT
וַיְבָרֶךְ
vayevarekh
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the same consonants also form the Hebrew word for knee.
“blessed” in this verse is vayevarekh. The root links blessing with the knee, bringing the image of a bent knee close to the word. Here, the creatures’ increase begins under a bestowed blessing, before they multiply.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root brings the posture of a bent knee into the sound of blessing.
berakhah: blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun names the blessing itself, the spoken gift under which the creatures increase.
וּרְבוּ
urevu
GROWS FROM
רבה
Become many; increase.
“multiply” in this verse is urevu. The same increase is spoken over life in the waters and over the birds on the earth. Multiplication fills more than one living domain, carrying abundance through creation.
ALSO GROWS
harbeh: much, greatly, abundantly
הַרְבֵּה
This form carries the root’s increase into the sense of abundance.
rav: many, great
רַב
This related form gives the result of increase: what was one becomes many.
THE PATTERN
Life expands into abundance as it inhabits its place and receives what sustains its growth.
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 creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.THE THREAD
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 same blessing verb, וַיְבָרֶךְ (vayevarekh), opens the charge to human life: be fruitful and multiply. The shared root ties abundance in the waters and sky to abundance on the earth.
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