As each part of the universe became visible elements
born of God's Imagination, He declared it "good,"
and it gave Him pleasure.

Yet God blessed only three things:

1. The creatures in the sea and those that fly in the air, but not the creatures that lived on the earth.
2. Man and woman.
3. The Seventh Day of rest.

To bless is to
"confer prosperity upon, to bestow benefit."

God 's pleasure was over all He made but
His blessing was given in only three places.

God placed the two lights and took pleasure in them.
But He did not bless them.

God made vegetation and though He saw that it was good,
He did not bless the trees,
the plants and their seed. 

The word "bless" in Hebrew is barak or baruch and
its root meaning is to "kneel"
the inference is that of existing to bless God
to fulfill His idea and satisfy His purpose.
 
The very first blessing pronounced was to
the fish of the sea and the birds of the air.

The fish of the sea and the birds of the air live
outside the realm of man's home, earth.
They can be caught and though they can be caged
they cannot be tamed to work.
They are food but not laborers.

God blessed them, saying,
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas,
and let the birds multiply on the earth."
Genesis 1:22
Three commands:
Be fruitful,
Multiply - in seas and on earth,
Fill the waters. 

The blessing conferred on them was to be fruitful.
The blessing of God is multiplication. Abundance.
Rich provision that bows to God's purpose.
Fish and fowl fulfill His intention
under His blessing of multiplication.

Fish and birds have so multiplied that
they are more numerous
than any other living thing.

Powerful is the blessing of God.
So vibrant, so dynamic is His blessing
that He is most careful on
whom He bestows it. 

The "living creatures, cattle and creeping things
and beasts of the earth" were not blessed,
simply a decree that they would reproduce.

Had they been given the blessing, their numbers
would have covered and taken over the earth.

The second blessing was given to man and woman.

God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him:
male and female He created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them,
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,
and subdue it; and rule
over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the sky and
over every living thing that moves on the earth."
 
God blessed them first and then He gave the command of dominion.
First they were to produce more people.
To multiply.
Then to fill the earth with people.
Next the command was to subdue it.
Fill the earth and subdue it . . . .

God created the world in an unsubdued form,
so that His partners, Adam and Eve,
might learn to rule in their sphere
for His pleasure.

God's original blessing was on humanity's dominion,
a limited rulership, confined
to the earth and its animal inhabitants. 

For that dominion, the blessing of God was
upon multiplication
and for increase.

God's way is always increase . . .
Everything created on earth was to reproduce
and fill the void on the earth.
God is about increase:
"of the increase of His government
and peace there will be no end."
Isa. 9:7 KJ

John the Baptist declared
"He MUST increase . . . ."

The Hebrew meaning of blessing is to
"confer prosperity upon, to bestow benefit."

Prosperity is not for selfish consumption
but for the increase of God's dominion.

Health is always expansion.
Illness, diminishment.

Creation was formed with the wonder of
self-reproduction built into it by the
most minuscule of seed.

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and
increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.
2 Cor. 9:10

Seed is the inherent center of all God originates
and multiplication is the result of His seed.
Even His Word is seed!
 
And where His Word is breathed the seed
will increase.
Is. 55:11, 12

Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick