28 God blessed them, and God said to them וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֮ אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים
Here we have the verse that matches v. 22 on Day Five, after the Sea and Sky creatures are made. There are a few significant differences that are worth mentioning.
First, this one. In v. 22, God blesses the new creations לֵאמֹ֑ר lemor — that is, with the following instruction to reproduce and proliferate as a quotation directed at them. As we noted, lemor introduces quoted language. But it seemed clear that God was not speaking to these creatures in some language that they might comprehend (let alone Hebrew). The instruction was metaphoric: I am building into you the capability to reproduce, as I did for the plants on Day Three.
Now, instead of lemor, “God said to them,” speaking directly to the new human creatures. It still seems unlikely that we are to imagine that God is giving them instructions; if you take that notion literally, it is easy to picture the absurdity of the scene.
Nonetheless, I think what we have here is a progression similar to what we’ve seen in other threads of the story:
plants reproduce automatically without blessing
fish and birds are blessed with the ability to reproduce
humans are told that they are blessed with that ability
Genesis 1, as I read it, assumes the following, some of which is being challenged by the science of our own day: Plants are not self-aware beings. There is no “I think, therefore I am” in the world of flora. Fish and birds can move on their own and we observe them moving in ways that seem self-directed; they are self-aware, even if they have no language. Human beings clearly are self-aware and can communicate abstract ideas with words.
The big question here is why the animals are not blessed and instructed or commanded to reproduce. The ancient translations, as far as I am aware, preserve no evidence of any such instruction in v. 25 where the animals are created. We’ll talk more about this before the end of today’s post.
Reproduce, proliferate, and fill the earth and subdue it פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ
Here we have another addition/alteration to what we saw on Day Five. Added to “reproduce, proliferate, and fill the earth” is the further instruction to “subdue it.” We saw in v. 26 that God’s intent was for humans to control the other living things, and we will see that verb again in a moment. But before controlling them, they must first “subdue” them.
The Hebrew verb כבשׁ k-b-sh is often translated as “conquer.” It’s not as common a verb in the Bible as you might think, occurring just 14 times. It is sometimes used, as we might expect the English word to be, for conquering territory in war. Yet 5 of the other 13 examples of the word point in a different direction that seems more applicable here.
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