I Will Surely Multiply Your Offspring: An Old Testament Theology of the Blessing of Progeny with Special Attention to the Latter Prophets

After creating man and woman, God's first recorded blessing upon them is "be fruitful and multiply" Like the blessings of food and health, the human experience of procreation is so common that we may overlook its importance within the biblical narrative. However, I Will Surely Multiply Your Offspring, a comprehensive examination of the progeny blessing, demonstrates that this motif is both prevalent and significant within the Old Testament by tracing its development throughout the redemptive-historical narrative. Viands identifies different progeny blessing traditions associated with the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, and the new covenant, and describes their interrelationships as well as their relationship to the universal blessing first found in Genesis 1. This study lays the foundation for a biblical worldview of human proliferation, contributing to contemporary discussions concerning whether humans are obligated to bear children as well as procreation ethics.

Jamie Viands (PhD, Wheaton College) is Lecturer in Old Testament at Scott Christian University in Machakos, Kenya, East Africa.