The subject
G-d is repeated twice. The blessing extended to other creatures has but one subject: “G-d blessed them saying: ‘Be fruitful and multiply’.”
Genesis 1:22 The two phrases in the case of man imply a commandment in addition to the blessing.
Various commentaries on this verse, including Luzzatto, S.R. Hirsch. Likewise, in the ninth chapter of Genesis, which recounts the blessing that G-d bestowed upon man after the Flood, we read: “And G-d blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’”
Genesis 9:1 There is here also a doubling of the phrase as found in the first chapter of Genesis, without the repetition of that subject
G-d. However, in order to insure against any possibility of error, the phrase was repeated immediately after the prohibition of bloodshed: As for you, be fruitful and multiply; abound on the earth and increase on it.
Nahmanides. In light of the above, the Oral Tradition has declared procreation a religious duty, an imperative placed upon man by the Divine Law, a commandment whose purpose is to channelize a wild instinct and subject it to conscious control of man’s intelligence, for the purpose of perpetuating the human species. ROSNER 63
VIEW EXCERPT DETAILS