And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
And God blessed Noah and his sons. In the now expurgated world Noah sustained the character and held the position of a second representative father of the human race. Since the economy of Providence was henceforth to be developed on a different plan from that of the antediluvian world, another covenant was made for the preservation of man in the new order of things. A new charter of privileges was given to him, embodied in a brief and simple but majestic code of fundamental laws, for the authoritative guidance of all future generations; and this legislative enactment is most appropriately represented as proceeding from God ( 'Elohiym (H430)), the supreme ruler. Here is republished the law of nature that was announced to Adam, consisting, as it originally did, of several parts.
Be fruitful, ... The first part relates to the transmission of life, the original blessing being re-announced in the very same words in which it had been promised at first.