Be fruitful

The first blessing spoken in the entire Bible is not spoken to a human being. It is spoken to fish and birds on the fifth day of creation: be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth. Before the fall, before sin, before any covenant with Abraham or covenant at Sinai, the first recorded blessing God speaks is a word of abundance over living creatures. This is the posture of God before anything went wrong — His first instinct toward what He has made is blessing, abundance, multiplication, life. It tells me something fundamental about His character. The story of redemption is not God becoming kind to a creation He was initially indifferent to. It is God restoring the blessing He intended from the very beginning.