Does
replenish mean
to
Fill or
re-fill?
HARLEY
HITCHCOCK
PO
Box 310 Mt Ommaney
Australia
4074
“Does
replenish mean to fill or re-fill?”
The King James Bible Church
The
changed meaning of the Bible word “replenish”
has come to provide support for belief in the Gap Theory.
And
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto
them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth. (Gen 9:1)
Rather
than fill the earth, which is the
meaning of the word ‘replenish’,
Gappists believe that God gave Adam and Eve the go ahead to repopulate
or to restock the earth after God destroyed his first
creation (which he
didn’t) along with a pre-Adamite race.
Now
at the first glance, this would seem to have merit, in that the popular use of the word today is
exactly that – to re-fill or re-stock. But,
when dealing with the Authorized Bible – the
King James, we must tread carefully.
Words
change
Certainly, the meanings
of words have changed over time. For example, Paul says he was let
(Rom 1:13) when he wanted to travel somewhere. The meaning today is to
be allowed
but Paul’s use of the word meant he was hindered -
which is
the opposite.
Satan also likes to get
involved in all of this, and one of favourite tricks is to take words
of the
Bible and give them another meaning, such that the effect is twofold:
1. Christians stop using
certain words of the Bible, and indeed, may be ashamed to do so
2. Unsaved people can
look at the Bible and justify their lifestyle.
For example, take the word
gay (Jam 2:3) where a man is wearing gay clothing, and
in the
Bible, it means bright. However, this term has been ambushed
and
commandeered by a very small minority. So it should come as no surprise
then,
that satan has helped to change the word ‘replenish’ to mean restock.
Supermarket shelves
Now
to everyone’s mind, the word re-stock
is associated with supermarket
shelves. For example, a grocery department head might walk along and
notice
that all the tins of Baked Beans are gone and the shelves are empty. He
calls
over a store employee and says “I’d like
you
to re-stock the shelves.” The employee looks and sees that he needs to
find
some more cartons of Baked Beans. He’s not
thinking “I’ll get some cans of Tuna.” And so to re-stock, he replaces like with like.
Early
gappist theory meant that God’s instructions to Noah would see him
re-populating the earth with men and women, to replace
the men and women who drowned prior to the Lucifer’s flood
after Gen 1:1.
But
doesn’t Noah restock the earth?
Not
necessarily, as re-stocking may not be filling. Adam does better – he
fills.
Now
according to the gappists, because Noah
re-populates the earth, which he does, this
second mention of the word ‘replenish’ in the Bible,
has taken on
the meaning of to restock, and
becomes the substituted meaning to the first mention, where Adam is
told to
fill by replenishing.
So
the popular meaning of the second mention is carried back to the first
mention
to read: Be fruitful, and multiply, and restock
the earth, and subdue it: (Gen 1:28)
No,
re-stocking does not
necessarily mean re-filling, but any re-stocking that happens is the
byproduct
of filling.
Strong’s
number 4390 Maw-law is the Hebrew word from which replenish is translated and it means to
fill, be full of, accomplish,
confirm, be at an end, fulfill,
fullness,
furnish, satisfy, consecrate.
Even
if you play the Greek
Game by substituting different English words from the back of Strong’s
Concordance, you can’t give
the
word ‘replenish’ the
meaning of ‘restock’.
The
plain reading
There’s
a plain reading of Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth. (Gen 9:1)
God
says to be
fruitful – give birth
multiply – have plenty of babies
replenish - fill the earth
Restock and restock?
Now wouldn’t you think that being fruitful and
multiplying would mean to restock? So gappists have us believe that God
says to
Noah “Be fruitful and multiply (restock) and then
replenish (restock)?
Surely not.
Further understanding is
had when God says to Noah - And you,
be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply
therein. (Gen 9:7)
In this verse God simply
tells Noah to populate the earth by telling him to be fruitful
and multiply, and of course in doing so, he will be filling (or
replenishing)
the earth.
But doesn’t the word ‘replenish’ mean the same in Gen
1:28 as in Gen
9:1?
Absolutely, but as we’ve
seen it’s not the common accepted meaning of today. With man
the
pinnacle of God’s creation, God tells both Adam and Noah to finish
and satisfy
God’s creation by filling it with people.
In comparing the two
accounts, people naturally assume that because Noah restocks the earth
by
replenishing, then Adam must also be restocking, because the
same word
‘replenish’ is used.
However,
as gappists began
to see that sin only entered the world through Adam, and not via the
rebellious
pre-Adamite men, reason took over
and this got watered down to less definitive terms, such as a race like men, a pre-Adamite race of beings,
sons of God, angels and spirit
beings and so on.
Adam was
only filling not restocking – there was no replacing
like with like.
Dictionaries
Although English
dictionaries were not in existence before the 18th century,
a
‘dictionary like’ publication was Robert Cawdrey’s Alphabetical
Table of
1604 which defines the word “replenish” as “fill”.
Also, the Oxford
English Dictionary states that the foremost usage of the word
‘replenish’ was ‘to make full, stock with.”
Below, are reproduced
copies of the word ‘replenish’ out of three of Webster’s
dictionaries – 1828, 1891 and 1892.
Noah
Webster’s Dictionary of 1828 |
REPLEN′ISH, v.t. [ Norm. replener, to fill; It.
riempire; L. re and plenus,
full. ] 1. To fill; to
stock with numbers or abund- ance. The magazines are replenished
with corn. The springs are replenished with
water.
Multiply and replenish the earth. Gen. i. 2. To finish; to
complete [Not in use ] Shak. REPLEN′ISH, v.i. To
recover former ful- REPLEN′ISHED, pp. Filled ; abundantly supplied
|
Noah
Webster’s Dictionary of 1891 |
RE-PLEN′ISH, v.t. [ Norm. replener, to fill; It.
riempire; L. re and plenus,
full. ]
1. To fill; to stock with
numbers or abundance.
The magazines are replenished with corn.
The springs are replenished
with water.
Multiply and replenish the earth. Gen. i.
2. To finish; to complete [Not in use ] Shak. RE-PLEN′ISH, v.i. To
recover former fulness.
Bacon
RE-PLEN′ISH-ED, (re-plen′isht,) pp. Filled ;
abundantly supplied
RE-PLEN′ISH-ING, ppr. Filling ; supplying
with abundance |
Noah
Webster’s Dictionary of 1892 |
Re-plen′ish ( rē-plĕn′ ĭsh), v. t. [REPLENISHED (-plĕn′isht)
; REPLENISHING, ] To fill up
again ; To
fill completely |
Kent Hovind explains:
In
the 1828 dictionary, the
word ‘replenish’ had a primary meaning of fill
and a secondary meaning of fill again.
In
1891, it was the same way
with the primary meaning of the word being fill.
The secondary meaning is to recover former
fullness.
In
1892, IT SWITCHED!
Notice
how fill again is the primary
meaning, and to fill is the secondary
meaning.
In
later dictionaries after
this, what used to be the original meaning, to fill,
is now gone, and the new dictionaries often only list fill
again.
Conclusion
…
Gappists
have wrongfully
taken the “re-“ from the word ‘replenish’,
and prefaced it onto the word ‘stock’ to get the word “re-stock”.
Then
this new meaning of
‘restock’ has been applied back to ‘replenish’, such that its meaning
of ‘fill’
has been changed to ‘refill’
Furthermore
…
The
fuller meaning of
‘replenish’ is not just to fill but also
to
consecrate.
You
can stock, restock, and
fill supermarket shelves – but you can’t replenish them.
Adam
wasn’t re-populating,
re-stocking or re-filling the earth. He wasn’t just stocking and
filling it
either!
“None
of these” says God to
Adam, “You’re doing a far greater thing than just filling the earth,
you are consecrating it.
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