Propagation

This heading is treated narrowly — the propagation of species, enjoined — across seven verses from Genesis 1 and Genesis 9. The arc is creation-week and post-flood: the divine command that each kind of creature multiply and fill its habitat. Plants, sea-creatures, birds, land animals, and finally the human pair are addressed in turn; the same charge is renewed to Noah's household after the waters recede. The relevant UPDV verses are quoted below in their actual wording.

After Their Kind

The first appearance of the multiplication theme is built into the way the third day of creation is worded. The earth is told to put forth seed-bearing vegetation that already carries the means of its own continuance: "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, [and] fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, in which is their seed, on the earth: and it was so" (Gen 1:11). The execution clause repeats the formula and adds the divine verdict: "And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind: and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12). Propagation is named into being as a property of the created order before any animal or human is on the scene — it is the seed inside the fruit, given as part of the original "good."

The same "after their kind" phrasing governs the fifth and sixth days. The sea-creatures, swarming life, and birds are made each "after its kind" (Gen 1:21); land animals follow the same pattern, "cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind" (Gen 1:24); and the executed work is again described kind-by-kind, "the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:25). The repetition is structural — every category of living creature is established as a self-perpetuating type before the multiplication blessing is spoken over it.

The Blessing on Animal Life

To the sea-creatures and the birds the multiplication command is given as a direct blessing: "And [the Speech of] God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth" (Gen 1:22). The verse is the first time in the chapter that the verbs "be fruitful" and "multiply" appear as imperatives on a creature, and they are spoken as a benediction rather than as a bare instruction. The water and the sky are each given their own filling.

The Mandate to Humanity

The pattern is then handed to the human pair, but with two additions — subduing the earth and exercising dominion over the other creatures: "And [the Speech of] God blessed them: and [the Speech of] God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen 1:28). The propagation command is the first thing spoken to humanity in the narrative; it is set inside a blessing, paired with the filling of the earth, and tied to a vocational charge over the spheres just blessed in verse 22.

The Renewal to Noah

After the flood the same blessing-and-charge is renewed to Noah's household, with the multiplication command bracketing the unit on either side. It opens: "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 9:1). Between the bracket-verses, the new conditions of the post-flood order are set: animals will live in fear of man (Gen 9:2), animal flesh is added to the human diet with the blood prohibited (Gen 9:3-4), and a reckoning is required for the shedding of human blood, on the ground that man is made "in the image of God" (Gen 9:5-6). Then the bracket closes with a second, intensified statement of the original mandate: "And you⁺, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it" (Gen 9:7). The plural-you marks the addressees as the whole household, not Noah alone, and the command frames the entire post-flood charter — propagation is the first word and the last word God speaks to the new humanity.