How One English Word Shaped a Whole Doctrine

A proof, often used to support the theory that there was a world before the one created in Genesis, is found in the following passage.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth… (Genesis 1:27, KJV)

The word “replenish,” certainly does imply that the world was populated prior to Genesis. However, the KJV translation is misleading. The Hebrew verb maley simply means “fill,” not replenish.

This is my number one complaint with the mainstream translations. They are never consistent in how they translate the Hebrew and Greek and are in reality, interpreting the text for you without telling you.

Below, are all the ways the KJV translates the verb maley. Notice that it is translated as “replenish” 7 times and “fill” 107 times.

fill (107x), full (48x), fulfil (28x), consecrate (15x), accomplish (7x), replenish (7x), wholly (6x), set (6x), expired (3x), fully (2x), gather (2x), overflow (2x), satisfy (2x), miscellaneous (14x)

This is why I created the Mechanical method of translating the Bible, which translates each Hebrew word the same way every time it occurs. You are basically seeing the Hebrew through the English translation.