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Grand Human Prospects in a Paradise of PleasantnessThe Watchtower—1989 | August 1
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Further, God blessed them and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.’
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Grand Human Prospects in a Paradise of PleasantnessThe Watchtower—1989 | August 1
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Prospects Ahead of the First Human Couple
14. With God’s blessing, what future lay before the perfect man and woman, and what could they rightly envision?
14 What a wonderful thing it was for that perfect man and his perfect wife to hear the voice of God talking to them, telling them what to do and blessing them! With God’s blessing, life would not be in vain, but they would be enabled to do what they were told to do. What a future was ahead of them! As the happily married couple stood there in their home, the garden of Eden, they likely meditated on what would come to be as they carried out God’s will for them. As their mind’s eye looked forward into the distant future, they saw, not just the “garden in Eden, toward the east,” but the whole earth filled with radiant-faced men and women. (Genesis 2:8) The heart of the man and the woman would leap at the thought that all of these were their children, their descendants. All were perfect, flawless in bodily form and structure, having perpetual youth that abounded with fine health and the joy of living, all of them expressing perfect love for one another, all unitedly worshiping their great Creator, their heavenly Father, doing this along with the first human father and mother. How the heart of the first man and woman must have swelled at the thought of having such a family!
15, 16. (a) Why would there be plenty of food for the human family? (b) As the happy family grew in number, what work would there be for them outside the garden of Eden?
15 There would be plenty of food for every member of this human family that filled the whole earth. There was plenty of food to begin with, there in the garden of Eden. God had provided for them and given to them all vegetation bearing seed to serve as healthful, life-sustaining food, along with the fruit-bearing trees.—Compare Psalm 104:24.
16 As their happy family grew in number, they would expand the garden to the lands beyond the borders of Eden, for God’s words indicate that outside the garden of Eden, the earth was in an unprepared state. At least, it was not cared for and was not brought to the same high level of cultivation that marked the garden of Eden. That was why their Creator told them to “subdue” the earth as they filled it.—Genesis 1:28.
17. Why would there be plenty of food for the growing population, and what would eventually prevail as the garden was enlarged?
17 As the garden was expanded by perfect cultivators and caretakers, the subdued earth would yield plentifully for the growing population. Finally, the steadily enlarging garden would cover all the earth, and an earth-wide paradise would prevail, to flourish as mankind’s everlasting home. It would be a beauty spot to view from heaven, and the heavenly Creator could pronounce it very good.—Compare Job 38:7.
18. Why would the global garden of Eden be free from disturbance, and what peacefulness would prevail?
18 It would all be as peaceful and free from disturbance as that garden of Eden in which the newly married man and woman found themselves. There would be no need to fear danger or harm from all those animals and flying creatures that the first man, Adam, had inspected and named. Like their first human father and mother, those perfect inhabitants of the earth-wide Paradise would have in subjection the fish of the sea, the flying creatures of the heavens, and every living thing moving about on the earth, even the wild beasts of the open field. With an instinctive sense of subjection to man, who was created “in God’s image,” these lower living creatures would be at peace with him. Their tender, perfect human masters, in having these lower living creatures in subjection, would foster a climate of peace among the animal creation. The peaceful influence of these godlike human masters would spread protectively over these contented lower living creatures. Above all, perfect mankind would be at peace with God, whose blessing would never be removed from them.—Compare Isaiah 11:9.
God Rests From His Creative Works
19. (a) With regard to God’s purpose, what must the first man and woman have realized? (b) What did God indicate with regard to time?
19 As the perfect human couple would contemplate the completed earthly scene according to God’s purpose, they would realize something. For them to carry out this marvelous commission from God would require time.
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