Genesis 9:1

Summary

Genesis 9:1 reports that God blessed Noah and his sons, and then commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. The verse consists of two narrative actions—blessing and speaking—followed by a triple imperative addressed to Noah and his sons.

Key words

• y.Va.rekh ("he blessed", H1288) — Piel stem (intensive/factitive) with narrative vav, marking a decisive, sequential action: "and he blessed."
• 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G) — grammatically plural noun functioning as the subject of the singular verb y.Va.rekh, a common pattern for this term as a name for the deity in narrative Hebrew.
• pe.Ru ("be fruitful", H6509) — Qal imperative, plural, masculine, addressed to more than one person (Noah and his sons together).
• re.Vu ("multiply", H7235A) — Qal imperative, plural, continuing the same command chain, joined by the conjunction u ("and").
• mil.'U ("fill", H4390) — Qal imperative, plural, closing the triad of commands, followed by the direct object marker 'et- and ha-'Aretz ("the earth", H0776G).

What the text says

The verse is built on two verbs carrying narrative vav-consecutive forms: y.Va.rekh ("he blessed") and i.Yo.mer ("he said"). This construction chains the actions sequentially — first the blessing occurs, then the speech follows. The object of the blessing is marked twice with the untranslated direct object marker 'et-: once for No.ach ("Noah", H5146) and once for ba.Na ("sons", H1121A) with the suffix v ("his"), so the blessing falls on Noah and his sons as a joint unit, not on Noah alone with sons as an afterthought.

The three imperatives pe.Ru, re.Vu, and mil.'U are all Qal plural masculine forms, addressed collectively to "them" (la.Hem, H9038, "to them"). The repetition of the conjunction u ("and") before each verb creates a rhythmic triad rather than a single compound command, giving each verb equal weight: being fruitful, multiplying, and filling are presented as three distinct but linked actions. The final phrase 'et-ha-'Aretz ("the earth") uses the definite article ha (H9009), specifying "the earth" as a whole, not an unspecified land.

Differences between versions

The LXX text provided adds a fourth clause, καὶ κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς ("and have dominion over it"), which has no corresponding Hebrew term in this verse's word-by-word data — the Hebrew ends with mil.'U 'et-ha-'Aretz ("fill the earth") without any dominion verb. The Vulgate (Crescite, et multiplicamini, et replete terram) and the Hebrew both present only three imperatives, matching the three Qal commands in the Masoretic Text, while the LXX as given here includes a fourth.