This article is part of a series on the changing meaning of English words and its impact on the King James Only debate. To see the introduction to this series, click HERE.

The meaning and usage of words in any language change over time. Words that carried one meaning even a few generations ago may now mean something completely different to present-day English speakers. These changes can impact how we read, understand, and apply older English writings without our even realizing that we are misunderstanding what the author meant. We see a familiar word and read it with its modern definition without having any reason to pause and think about it, and thus we walk away with a different sense of the passage than the author intended. There are many such instances in old Bible translations like the KJV. For an example of this, let’s consider the word “replenish.”

Replenish the Earth

Today, the word “replenish” means “to refill; to make full or complete again by supplying what was once present but is now lacking.” This has led, in the last couple centuries, to some interesting interpretations of Genesis 1 where the KJV says:

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28, KJV).

Some have derived from this wording that, if God told Adam and Eve to “replenish the earth” by having children, then it must mean that the earth was once full of people before Adam and Eve. The man and woman of Genesis 1 (so this interpretation goes) were not the first such beings God had ever created. There may well have been innumerable civilizations before our Bible begins whom God had previously destroyed. They note the parallels to what God says to Noah after destroying the earth by flood:

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” (Genesis 9:1, KJV).

Just as Noah and his sons were to replenish the earth after the rest of humanity had died in the flood, so too (these interpreters claim) Adam and Eve were to replenish the earth after some other previous humanity had been lost, perhaps in a previous global judgment. These assertions are completely erroneous, and they arise not from the original Hebrew text, but rather from the gradual changing of the English language. You see, “replenish” was originally a much broader word. It simply meant “fill.” It did not imply that the thing being filled had ever been filled before. One could “replenish” something by filling it for the very first time, and then “replenish” it again by refilling it later. It was, again, just a general word for “fill.” This is why all major modern translations render the relevant phrase in both Genesis 1:28 and 9:1:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” (NASB, see also NKJV, ESV, CSB, NIV).

The KJV translators were not wrong to use the word “replenish.” In 1611, the word still meant “fill,” and so it made perfect sense here. Indeed, the translators of all the classic authorized versions, or Bible translations commissioned and approved by the English crown (The Great Bible, the Bishop’s Bible, and the KJV), chose the word “replenish” in these passages. Yet, the modern translations are not exactly novel here either. The John Wycliffe Bible, William Tyndale’s Pentateuch, the Coverdale Bible, the Matthew Bible, and the Geneva Bible all used “fill the earth” long before the KJV was ever conceived. This was not due to a conflict or disagreement between the translators on what the word meant. “Replenish” and “fill” were synonyms. In those days, both renderings meant the same thing. In time, however, “replenish” has changed in its meaning while “fill” has so far remained basically the same. As such, over time, Wycliffe and Tyndale’s “fill” proved to be the more timeless reading while the KJV’s “replenish” has become misleading. This is, again, of no fault in the KJV translators, who cannot be expected to predict the way people will speak English 400 years after their work. Still, if one opts to use the KJV by itself today, without other translations to turn to or knowledge of the original language, such changes in word meaning can and do lead the modern reader into accidental errors, as this passage actually has for many people.