1. Genesis 1:28 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

How were Adam and Eve to subdue the earth?

Genesis 1:28 (ESV)

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This does not mean that man should exploit and abuse the earth causing all kinds of environmental and humanitarian problems. “Adam and his wife were to be responsible to God and accountable for all the ways in which they did or did not cultivate the natural world about them.”1