And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply
God’s blessing abundant
At the close of this day the Lord does what He has not done on any of the other four days; He blesses that which He has created, and the object of His blessing is an abundant and perpetual increase.
God is liberal; munificent in His donations both temporal and spiritual. Does He give joy? It is unspeakable joy. Does He give peace? It is a peace which passeth all understanding. Does He give pleasures? They are pleasures for evermore. Does He give glory: It is an exceeding eternal weight of glory. The close-handed and narrow-hearted Christian has not learned to be so in the school of the Master. All who are in His school, and who practice the lessons which they receive there, are open-handed and large-hearted. (A. McAuslane, D. D.)
God’s blessing upon the means of great importance
As in a course of physic, a diseased man is prescribed to boil certain midicinabble herbs in running water, and then to drink a quantity of that water, and so is cured of his disease; and yet we know that it is not the water, but the decoction or infusion, which cureth the patient: so it is not the bread that nourisheth, nor the abundance of outward things which enricheth or contenteth, but the infusion of God’s blessing, which is the staff of life, without which a man may starve for hunger with bread in his mouth, suffer the extremity of cold with good clothes on his back, and die like the children of Israel with the flesh of quails in his mouth. (J. Spencer.)