Expert: LEBoyd - 4/21/2008

Question
I am hoping you can answer this question for me as I have been asking people for about a year now.  I use the KJV bible and am really curious as to why God told Adam and Eve to go forth and "replenish" the earth.  If they were the beginning, how can they replenish something that wasn't there to start with?  If you replenish something, you are building it back up to what it was to start with.  Thanks.  

Answer
Brenda,

Thank you for the question.  All of the typical translations (KJV, NAS, NIV, NKJV, etc.) used the original Hebrew to translate to English.  As with many languages, Hebrew has words that have multiple meaning (great examples in English are "record" and "play").  Therefore, the translators consider the context of the Scripture and try to use English words from their time period (English is a "live" language wherein words change meanings as people use them.).  The KJV actually has had several changes since 1611 because of the changes in the English.

The Hebrew word is "male'" or "mala'", has several meanings and is used in a wide variety of Scripture both literally and figuratively.  Broadly, it means "to fill" or "be full of".  In addition to "replenish", it is translated in numerous ways such as "to fill", "to be fenced" and "to satisfy".

With the definition, you can see some of the difficulty in translating to English.

Why the KJV translates it "replenish" in Gen. 1:28 is interesting, especially as you point out, the timing of Genesis (the beginning) makes "REplenishing" impossible.  One hint may be that the older versions (e.g., the old American Standard Version and KJV) use "replenish", but all of the newer versions (such as NKJV, NAS, NIV, RSV, Living Bible) use "fill".

Now if we look at the history of the English word "replenish" we see that it comes from an old French word, "repleniss" - which used to mean "to fill up".

So, by studying the Hebrew, the old KJV and the history of the English word, we see that "replenish" used to mean "to fill up" and did not have an implication to "refill".  Today's newer English translations have updated the word to "fill" instead of "replenish".

Hope this helps.