Filling The Earth | The Institute for Creation Research

Filling The Earth

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Genesis 9:1).

This was the first command given by God to mankind in the new world after the Flood. Actually, it simply renewed the first command given to Adam and Eve in the primeval world. "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth . . ." (Genesis 1:28). The Old English word "replenish" means simply "fill," and the same is true of the Hebrew word (mala) from which it is translated. In fact, of its 220 occurrences, the King James translators rendered it "replenish" only seven times. Almost always they translated it by "fill," or the equivalent.

Thus, God's first command to men and women was to multiply until the earth was filled. Despite our latter-day concerns about exploding populations, this goal is far from accomplishment today. "Filling," of course, would imply filling only to the optimum capacity for productive human stewardship of the earth under God.

The pre-Flood earth was filled in only 1656 years, but it was "filled with violence through them," and God finally had to "destroy them with the earth" (Genesis 6:13).

In spite of man's failures, the Lord has given a gracious promise: "And the LORD said, . . . as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD" (Numbers 14:20-21). This will not be man's doing, however. When Christ returns in power and great glory as the destroying Stone, then "the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth" (Daniel 2:35). The new earth will finally be filled with an innumerable multitude of the redeemed (Revelation 7:9), and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14). HMM

The Latest
NEWS
June 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from...

CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Getting the Gospel into People's Hands | Creation.Live Podcast:...
Can God use an atheist airline pilot to reach other nations with the truth of the Gospel? The answer, obviously, is yes.   Host...

NEWS
Chimp Genome Only 75% Similar to Human?
An oft-repeated claim of evolutionary propaganda is that chimpanzee and human DNA are 98.5% identical. This high level of DNA similarity, which has...

NEWS
''73-Million-Year-Old'' Alaskan Salmon
Fish evolution remains an enigma. Evolutionists can only say fish first “appeared” over a half-billion years ago.1 Creationists...

NEWS
God's Memorial Day
“And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of...

NEWS
The Origin of Eukaryotes
Eukaryotes are multicellular organisms that contain diverse differentiated cell types. Within almost every cell there are subcellular compartments called...

CREATION PODCAST
Water vs. Wind: The Controversial Coconino | The Creation Podcast:...
Welcome to the sixth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Fossil Fish Finally Filmed
The bizarre lobe-finned coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) “that flourished some 350 million years ago”1 continues to be a thorn...

NEWS
The Mosasaur: A Giant Sea Dragon
Mosasaurs (order Squamata) were massive marine lizards that were common in the pre-Flood oceans. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fossils...

DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2025
...