Genesis 9:7 Daily Devotional & Meaning – Be Fruitful and Multiply
- Benjamin Michael Mcgreevy
- Mar 19
- 4 min read
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 45
“And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”
As you can tell, we have already encountered this command several times since the opening chapter of Genesis, from the very beginning, when God blessed Adam and Eve and told them to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it” in Genesis 1:28. And we saw it again in Genesis 9:1, as God blessed Noah and his sons after the Flood, repeating the same charge to repopulate the Earth. We see it once more in Genesis 8:17, when God commanded Noah to bring out every living creature from the ark “that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.” Later, in Genesis 28:3, Isaac blessed Jacob with the same promise, asking that God Almighty make him fruitful and multiply him so that he might become “a multitude of people.” Still later, in Genesis 35:11, God Himself appeared to Jacob and declared, “I [am] God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee.” And now again here, in Genesis 9:7, the command is repeated with a fresh emphasis: “bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”
With God repeating the same blessing so many times in the very first book of the Bible, we must understand that He is impressing something of great importance upon His people. This is not a casual suggestion; it is a divine mandate woven into the fabric of creation itself. The God who spoke galaxies into existence is also the God who delights in seeing His creation flourish. He is infinite and inexhaustible, and out of His abundance, He calls life to multiply, to spread, and to reflect His glory across the Earth.
This command also reveals His heart toward humanity, He does not wish for us to merely exist but to thrive, to build families, to cultivate communities, and to fill the Earth with those who bear His image. Each repetition of this blessing reminds us that God’s desire is not scarcity but abundance, not isolation but fellowship, not sterility but fruitfulness. He longs for His creation to be filled with love, with life, and with worshipers who know Him as their source. When we see how often God reiterates this command, it should cause us to pause and reflect on our own lives.
If this command is declaring that all children are blessings from God because they are His blessing upon Adam, upon Noah, and through them upon all of humanity, then we must ask ourselves: do we believe culture when it tells us that certain pregnancies are not okay? Not at all. This passage makes it clear that all life is sacred, no matter the circumstances of conception, because life itself comes from the hand of God.
But someone might ask, “How could that be if something horrible happened to you and that is why you are having this child?” This is where the truth of Scripture speaks louder than the brokenness of the world. The sins of the father or the sins of the mother are not upon the child. God makes this plain in Ezekiel 18:20 by saying, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father…” Each child comes into this world innocent of the circumstances that brought them here. If we were to judge children based on the sins of their parents, then none of us would have the right to life, for as Romans 3:10 reminds us, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” If sin disqualified life, every person would be condemned from birth. Yet God, in His mercy, declares life sacred because it is His gift, His image impressed upon human flesh, His blessing spoken over creation. Therefore, every child, regardless of the story that surrounds their conception, is part of God’s intention for humanity to be fruitful and multiply. To deny the sacredness of that life is to deny the voice of God who has spoken this blessing again and again since the dawn of creation. The repetition of His command puts His unchanging heart on display saying that life is good, life is holy, and life is His. This truth confronts the lies of the age.
The world says that life can be inconvenient, unwanted, or expendable. God says it is precious, intentional, and eternal in value. The world says that children born in difficult situations are burdens. God says they are blessings, living testimonies that He can bring beauty from ashes, joy from sorrow, and hope from despair.
Each child born is a declaration that God is still in the business of creating, still in the business of blessing, and still in the business of multiplying His image in the world.
In this way, Genesis 9:7 is not just a command to Noah; it is a reminder to every generation. The call to be fruitful and multiply is not only about filling the Earth with people but about filling the Earth with the truth that every life carries divine purpose. The circumstances of birth never define the worth of the child; God does. And He has spoken from the beginning that all life is sacred, all life is a blessing, all life is His.
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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