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The Laws › Commandment #119
Commandment #119 · Positive · Family Laws

The First Commandment: Be Fruitful and Multiply

פְּרִיָּה וּרְבִיָּה
Source: Genesis 1:28  ·  Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive #119

Before the Sabbath, before the dietary laws, before Sinai, before circumcision, before any covenant — God gave a commandment. "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." This is the first imperative spoken to humans in the Torah. It is also one of the most universal: given at creation, repeated after the flood, woven into every covenant blessing. And for some of the most significant women in the Bible, it was a commandment that required a miracle to fulfill.

The First Word That God Spoke Over Humans as a Command

וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁהָ וּרְדוּ בִּדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבְכָל חַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת עַל הָאָרֶץ
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Genesis 1:28 — Open in Torah Reader

Before the Sabbath. Before the dietary laws. Before any covenant with Abraham, before circumcision, before Sinai. This was the first imperative spoken to human beings in the Torah. The Hebrew verbs are commands: peru ur'vu — "be fruitful and multiply." They are addressed to both the man and the woman together. The commandment belongs to neither alone.

The command comes immediately after the blessing (Genesis 1:28a). Blessing and command arrive in the same breath. The fertility of humanity was not a natural outcome to be hoped for — it was a sacred directive, woven into the moment of creation itself, the first purpose stated for the beings made in God's image.

Repeated to a Survivor

וַיְבָרֶךְ אֱלֹהִים אֶת נֹחַ וְאֶת בָּנָיו
"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."
Genesis 9:1 — Open in Torah Reader

The same words. The same blessing formula. The same command. Spoken to Noah on ground that was barely dry, to a family that was the only humans left on earth. The world that had been filled and had then emptied by the flood needed to be filled again. The first instruction after the catastrophe was identical to the first instruction at creation: begin. Have children. Fill what is now empty.

Genesis 9:7 repeats it a second time in the same passage: "And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein." The repetition to Noah signals that the commandment was not addressed only to the first humans — it was the standing instruction to humanity after every catastrophe that threatened to end the human story.

The Barren Mothers — When the Command Had to Wait on Grace

וַיֹּאמְרוּ כָּל הָעָם אֲשֶׁר בַּשַּׁעַר וְהַזְּקֵנִים עֵדִים יִתֵּן יְהוָה אֶת הָאִשָּׁה הַבָּאָה אֶל בֵּיתֶךָ כְּרָחֵל וּכְלֵאָה אֲשֶׁר בָּנוּ שְׁתֵּיהֶם אֶת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וַעֲשֵׂה חַיִל בְּאֶפְרָתָה וּקְרָא שֵׁם בְּבֵית לָחֶם
"And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem:"
Ruth 4:11 — Open in Torah Reader

The community's blessing at Boaz and Ruth's wedding invoked Rachel and Leah — "which two did build the house of Israel." But both Rachel and Leah knew barrenness. Rachel died after bearing only two sons. Leah's fruitfulness was its own kind of grief. Sarah waited until ninety. Rebekah waited twenty years. Hannah was provoked, year after year, at the very place of worship (1 Samuel 1:6).

The first commandment given to humanity was the commandment that the Torah's most significant women could not fulfill by will alone. Their fruitfulness came through divine intervention, not through human effort. The commandment assumed both the obligation and the possibility of the miracle. It was addressed to humans and answered by God.

Key Figures

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Sarah — For Whom the First Commandment Required the Longest Wait
Sarah heard the promise of a son at age eighty-nine and laughed (Genesis 18:12). She received Isaac at ninety (Genesis 21:1-2). The first commandment given to humanity was the one that required her the most patience to fulfill — and when it was fulfilled, the child's name (Yitzhak, "he will laugh") preserved the record of the long wait and the absurdity of hope.
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Noah — Who Received the Same Command on Empty Ground the Morning After the World Ended
After the flood, standing on earth emptied of all human life, Noah received the identical blessing-command that Adam had received at creation: "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 9:1). The commandment that was given to build a world was given again to rebuild one. Noah is the second Adam — and the first commandment given to both was the same.

Study Questions

For reflection and group study
The commandment to be fruitful and multiply is given to both the man and the woman together in Genesis 1:28. Rabbinic tradition debated whether the obligation falls equally on both or primarily on men. What does the wording of the original verse itself suggest about the intended scope of the command?
The same commandment was given to Adam (Genesis 1:28) and to Noah (Genesis 9:1) in identical language. Both received it after a kind of beginning — creation and re-creation. What does the repetition suggest about the commandment's relationship to the idea of new beginning?
Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah all experienced barrenness at critical periods. If the commandment to be fruitful was genuine, why would the Torah's most significant women find it the hardest to fulfill? What does their experience add to the theological understanding of what "be fruitful" means?
Genesis 22:17: God promised Abraham that his seed would be "as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore." This promise came after the near-sacrifice of the only son of the promise. What does the timing of the promise suggest about the relationship between the commandment and the covenant?
The blessing at Boaz and Ruth's marriage (Ruth 4:11) invokes Rachel and Leah "which two did build the house of Israel." How does the communal, public blessing at a marriage connect to the private obligation of the commandment? What does the community's stake in this commandment reveal about its social function beyond the individual?

The first commandment given to humanity is also the one that required divine intervention to fulfill — explore the full arc of procreation as covenant in the Torah.

Open Genesis 1:28 in Torah Reader
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