Genesis 9:1 Daily Devotional & Meaning – God’s Unchanging Blessing
- Benjamin Michael Mcgreevy
- Mar 18
- 3 min read
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 44
“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
In Malachi 3:6, God declares, “For I [am] the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” This is one of the clearest verses proving the truth behind Genesis 9:1. God’s nature, His promises, and His purposes do not shift with time or circumstance. Here, we see that the blessing He spoke to Adam in the beginning is the same blessing He now speaks to Noah and his sons after the Flood. In both cases, God commissioned humanity with the words: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” Although judgment had fallen and the world had been wiped clean, God’s design and command for life remained unchanged. His covenant purposes were not thwarted by human sin or the Flood. Instead, His faithfulness carried Noah through, and His blessing renewed the mission given at creation.
This is where the analogy of numbers helps us understand the permanence of God’s promises. Regardless of where we are in history or in time, the law of numbers does not change. If you stood at the farthest edge of the universe and there was one single star, it would not matter whether anyone could see it, measure it, or even recognize it, there would still only be one star. The reality of “one” exists outside of human perception. Numbers are constant, eternal truths that operate independently of whether we understand them or not. God’s promises are the same way. They are not dependent on our ability to grasp them, measure them, or even fully believe them. They exist because He is the unchanging God who speaks the truth. Just as one star remains one star regardless of our perception, so do God’s promises remain what they are regardless of circumstance.
Thomas Aquinas does a great job of explaining this truth through what is often called the “argument of motion.” He reasoned that everything in motion must be set in motion by something else. A ball rolls because it was pushed; a tree sways because the wind moves it. Yet, if this process of one thing moving another went on into infinity, then nothing would actually move, since everything would be waiting to be moved by something else. An infinite regress of movers is impossible. Therefore, Aquinas concluded, there must be a first unmoved mover because something that causes motion without itself being moved. This first mover, he says, can only be God.
This philosophical reasoning beautifully parallels what we see in Scripture about God’s promises. Just as there must be a first unmoved mover to account for motion, so there must be an unchanging source for truth and covenant faithfulness. God Himself is that source. His promises do not depend on external circumstances, shifting cultures, or human faithfulness. He is the unchanging One who sets everything into motion and sustains it by His word.
When God blessed Adam and then Noah with the same words, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” He was acting as the First Mover of history by initiating and sustaining His covenant purposes without being altered by human failure. Sin may have corrupted the Earth, and judgment may have swept it clean, but God’s purpose moved forward unchanged. Just as one cannot erase the reality of “one star” in the universe, one cannot erase or diminish the eternal truths spoken by the unchanging God. This should strengthen our faith today: if God is the First Mover and the unchanging Promise-Keeper, then every word He has spoken will be accomplished. His blessings, His covenant, and His salvation in Christ are not fragile hopes but fixed realities, anchored in the very nature of the One who cannot change.
If you would like to explore Genesis in a sustained, verse-by-verse way with space to reflect, journal, and trace how these foundational truths unfold through Scripture the Verse by Verse book expands these reflections into a unified reading experience. The book gathers these meditations into a structured journey through Genesis, designed to help readers linger in the text and engage God’s Word more deeply over time.
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