And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.
7. And the children of Israel were fruitful. שרף, rendered in A V increased abundantly, — occurs first in Genesis 1:20, where it is rendered bring forth abundantly As a noun it signifies reptiles. מאד, meod; in A V exceeding is repeated twice after עצמו, they waxed mighty; but may properly be considered as augmenting the force of each of the preceding verbs.
Their names recur throughout Scripture to make them familiar to us, showing how precious God's spiritual Israel are to Him. Seventy souls entered Egypt, the very number of nations scattered at Babel, so mark how their later increase becomes wonderful, it is always good to remember how small a thing we began from before the Lord made us great.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 1:1-7
And the children of Israel were fruitful,.... In their offspring; became like fruitful trees, as the word signifies: and increased abundantly; like creeping things, or rather like fishes, which increase very much, see Gen 1:20. and multiplied; became very numerous, whereby the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were fulfilled: and waxed exceeding mighty; were hale, and strong, of good constitutions, able bodied men...