43. Verse 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let birds be multiplied upon the earth.

Everything that has life in it from the Lord is fruitful and multiplies without limit. This does not happen during a person's lifetime, but in the next life it does so to an astonishing extent. In the Word 'to be fruitful' has reference to matters of love, while 'to multiply' has reference to matters of faith. The fruit of love contains the seed by which it multiplies itself to so great an extent. The Lord' s blessing also means, in the Word, fruitfulness and multiplication, for they are the outcome of that blessing.

Verse 23 And there was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.

1362. That Terah was the son of Nahor, and also a nation that was named after him as its forefather, and that he means idolatrous worship, has been shown already. The fact that Terah was a nation becomes clear from the consideration that nations arising from his sons acknowledged him as their forefather, just as the sons of Jacob - that is, the Jews and Israelites - and also the Ishmaelites, Midianites, and others, acknowledged Abram as theirs and as the Moabites and Ammonites acknowledged Lot. Although these nations were not named after those forefathers, but after their sons, nevertheless when all acknowledge a common forefather and call themselves his sons - for example, the sons of Terah, or the sons of Abraham, or the sons of Lot - a nation is meant in a general sense by each one, as also here by Terah, Abram, Nahor, and Lot, because they are the stocks or roots of nations. The same was true of the descendants of Jacob who were all named after his twelve sons, but are nevertheless called Jacob and Israel, as well as the seed and the sons of Abraham, John 8:33, 39.