The Creation Mandate to “be fruitful and multiply”: A crux of thematic repetition in Genesis 1–11

Type Thesis

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Summary

The Mandate represents more than commands, and blessing defines more than fertility. Five texts were studied (Gen 1:22, 28, 8:17, 9:1, 7) for their role within each text plot and their collective theological portrait. The Creation Mandate is God's functional blessing, most clearly seen in 1:28. Through the Creator's blessing, relationship and status are activated for both propagation (1.28a, enablement) and governance (1.28b, commission). The image of God is functional and vital to the Mandate (1:26-27), granting royal authorization for a rule of creation stewardship as God's "under-kings." Key terms employed in the Mandate to Adam and Noah merge the national/political horizons of Israel with the historical/cosmic horizon of creation. The very ethos of Israel's conquest borrows theological language such as "rule" and "subdue" (1:28), moving it into the international theatre as "fear and terror" with "into your hand they are given" (9:2). The language of holy war functions within the cosmic context, even as blessing is fulfilled in Egypt (Exod 1:7).