God’s Word for You

Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, fill, subdue

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, August 11, 2026

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that crawls on the ground.”

In verse 22, God spoke a general blessing. Here, he said these words to the man and woman that he had created. They were created with the ability to understand speech, and they understood and spoke a language together and with God. Human speech is one of the great gifts God has given to mankind; it was not an evolutionary discovery. Just within the creation account (including the more detailed account of this day’s activity in chapter two) we see that the language skills of Adam and Eve were highly developed. Examples of all this can be found just in chapters one and two and the communication between God and the man and the woman before the fall into sin.

The blessed command to be fruitful and to multiply meant that God wanted them to have babies. God still wants us to fill our families up with children. When he gives a gift (such as a child), he will also give the family the ability to take care of that gift. But we need to remember: God placed the gift of sex, that is of producing those children, within the holy container of marriage. Of course it is a strain on any parent who is single to raise their family alone. Difficulties seem to come from every side, and so we should pray for single parents, divorced parents, widows and widowers; pray for God’s help for them. Yet God’s design for families remains: the best nest for raising children is in a loving Christian home with a father and a mother who love their Savior, love each other, and love their children.

Notice that God adds to the blessed command. He says: “Fill the earth.” They had time to do this; they had bodies that were unaffected by sin, disease, death—they had virtual immortality, or at the very least, a very long lifespan in which to raise their growing family. When we meditate on the birth of their third named son (surely not only their third son, but only the third one who is named in the Bible), we will consider just how large their family had grown by that time, when Eve was still having babies at 130 years old.

God also commanded in this blessing that they “subdue the earth, and rule over all the creatures.” Once again Moses clips the list of creatures down, this time mentioning only birds, fish, and crawling things. He has not forgotten the domestic animals nor the wild animals, which he will return to in Genesis 1:30 and again in 2:20.

What use would Adam have had for all these animals over which he and Eve had dominion? Soon we will learn that they were not given to him for food. They did not eat flesh in those days. Neither were there yet any carnivores among the animals (Genesis 1:29-30). “Mankind’s diet at creation, when everything was still perfect, was to be vegetable food, seed-bearing vegetables and grains, and the fruit of trees in which was their seed. The food of the animals was likewise to be wholly vegetarian: green plants” (Lawrenz & Jeske, A Commentary on Genesis 1-11, p. 78). So what use to Adam was a sheep, or a trout, or a sparrow?

1, The animals gave Adam the opportunity to learn that they all had mates, and that it was God’s will that he should have one, too (Genesis 2:20).

2, The animals also served as companion creatures, being subdued and safe and not dangerous, amidst the vast emptiness of the earth. For it is one thing to be alone in a huge house with a pet or two (like Job and his sheep dogs, Job 30:1), but it is altogether a different thing to be alone in a huge house with no other living thing at all. Such loneliness has unique crosses to bear (Ecclesiastes 4:8). Many fathers made pets for their children of various birds, dogs, or other things. “Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls?” (Job 41:5).

3, The animals may have served the man and woman in other, lesser means. For example the wool of the sheep or the milk of goats might have been used for comfort even had the fall not taken place (Proverbs 27:25-26), since sheep give wool without being hurt, and cattle and herds need to be milked. The heroic wife in Proverbs selects wool for the good of her family (Proverbs 31:13), and cheese was a favorite food (Isaiah 7:22). Of course, wool for clothing would not have been necessary before the fall, but the man and his wife could have found other uses for it.

4, Another service may have been to teach man lessons by the labor of the animals and their peculiar ways, which we see in the poetic books (Job 6:5, 39:1-30; Proverbs 30:29-31), although, being written after the Fall, most of those lessons are about sin, danger, and temptation. But lessons about temptation are always appropriate.

5, Some animals could show (through their actions) how to eat some of the more difficult or challenging foods. Bears crush shells to get into tough nuts. Elephants and crabs use their special strength to get into coconuts. Some animals like beavers and muskrats dive down to eat underwater roots and grasses that are good for people, too. God describes the massive Behemoth to Job, a creature that lurks “under the lotus plants… hidden among the reeds in the marsh” (Job 40:21).

6, Since most animals have a shorter gestation (pregnancy) than humans, Adam and Eve could have learned lessons from observing various animals giving birth and caring for their young (Psalm 84:3; Ezekiel 19:2), although we can easily assume that God would have given them some help and advice as well, to be sure everything went smoothly and with good results.

I am sure that I have barely scratched the surface of how the animal kingdom could have been a benefit to man before the Fall, and before meat was introduced as as food after Noah’s flood. But I am limited by the smallness of my imagination; perhaps others will do much better. But to think that everything in the universe must directly improve mankind’s life is a mistake. The universe, our world, the animal kingdom, were created for our good, but there may be some things that are only indirectly connected to our well-being, the way that the faculty of another school is only indirectly connected with the school in our neighborhood. But we must not miss the main point here. Whether a sheep, trout, or sparrow was of benefit to Adam, Adam was still given dominion over them. Not to reduce them into useful commodities, but to watch over them and see to it that the world was good and useful and beneficial to them. This is the true role of government; not to use the people, but to serve them, and make them safe. They do this by punishing those who do wrong, and by commending those who do right (1 Peter 2:14).

Pray that the Lord would bless you as you do your part in the dominion you have over your little corner of nature. It will not be yours forever, and you cannot force those who come after you to have the same care. But you can hand down to them something that is worth preserving. And while God’s gifts to us here on earth will not always be ours, yet Christ “makes everything new” (Revelation 21:5), and this includes us. What is damaged by sin and even by death will live, restored, remade, reborn and new forever through Jesus our Lord.

Thank God for his blessings, large and small, that lead us to give him glory. For just as we thank God for the delightful blessings of the earth, the flowers and stars and the comforting canopy of the trees, we also thank him for his Son our Savior, for his commandments, the comforting joys of marriage, and the message of our salvation.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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