What does the Bible say about population control / depopulation?

The encouragement of verse 1 to multiply on the earth is repeated in verse 7 with even more emphasis. Though multiplying would bring more sinners into the world, yet God would not be defeated by this: by His own pure grace He is able to save sinners. People today try every method of keeping the population of the world down, but God has not told them to do this. He knows how to take care of this problem and will do so in His own way. The world worries over a "population explosion," but God will relieve this very soon when the Lord Jesus comes to rapture Home to heaven all who have received Him as Savior. Then the following judgments of the tribulation will further drastically reduce earth's population!

The encouragement of verse 1 to multiply on the earth is repeated in verse 7 with even more emphasis. Though multiplying would bring more sinners into the world, yet God would not be defeated by this: by His own pure grace He is able to save sinners. People today try every method of keeping the population of the world down, but God has not told them to do this. He knows how to take care of this problem and will do so in His own way. The world worries over a “population explosion,” but God will relieve this very soon when the Lord Jesus comes to rapture Home to heaven all who have received Him as Savior. Then the following judgments of the tribulation will further drastically reduce earth's population!

But I have already extended this section far beyond the limit which I had prescribed for it. I shall, therefore, close it with a hasty glance at the contents of Gen. 9. In it we have the new covenant, under which creation was set, after the deluge, together with the token of that covenant. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Observe, God's command to man, on his entrance into the restored earth, was to refill that earth; not parts of the earth, but the earth. He desired to have men dispersed abroad, over the face of the world, and not relying upon their own concentrated energies. We shall see, in Gen. 11, how man neglected all this.

By the terms of the divine mandate men were to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen. 9:1). To be obedient to this, they must scatter, for how else could the replenishing of "the earth" be accomplished? But against this command of God the will of men rose up rebelliously. They would concentrate, and so consolidate their power and importance. A city and a tower were appointed as the centre and expression of their unity. The site chosen for these was the plain of Shinar, for many succeeding centuries one of Satan's chief distributing points, and possibly to be so again before "man's day" closes.

We have now a new development, in which not one or a few but the race displayed its state. God originally had in blessing men said, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. After the deluge, His word to Noah and his sons still was, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. But mankind, though awed by that judgment, had no care to do His will. Their mind was to keep together. And assuredly they pitched on a region, by its great rivers on either side and its exceeding fertility, eminently suited for their purpose; which was to constitute themselves a universal republic without God. Was it then for man to live by bread alone? So at least they spoke and acted: God was in none of their thoughts. It was the first joint, and public, step of the post-diluvian race. They were without excuse, not only because of the witness to God's eternal power and divinity manifested to them, but from such knowledge of God as Noah, "preacher of righteousness," professed and testified, backed by such an intervention as the deluge itself fresh in their memory. They glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. Into what folly in their inward reasonings this led them ere long need not be stated here. For we do not as yet hear of that new plague of Satan, idolatry; but it soon followed, as we way assuredly gather from Joshua 24:2, Romans 1:20-23.

And this is what makes the offence of building Babel (which is now generally recognised, as having been the nucleus of Babylon) so extreme, and the judgment thereon so severe — the motive. It may be said, What crime is there in building a high tower? None, but the motive that impelled it made it a crime: that motive was a deliberate determination made by a people, who had lately been the object of God's mercy and deliverance, to exclude Him from all part in their arrangements; to take from His hand the sceptre of government and magnify their own name at the expense of His. It is not only high treason, but it transcends that crime as the high treason of Lotharius and his brothers, in deposing their father from the throne of France, transcends ordinary high treason; it added thereto the heinous crime of ill-using one who had an especial claim on their affection and respect, the one who had given them being, sustenance, preservation, and wealth. Now Junius Brutus, when his sons conspired to dethrone, him, had them put to death; and though many may doubt the naturalness of Brutus' sentencing them, none doubt that they fully deserved it. The judgment, however, falling on the conspirators of Babel, was not of such an extreme nature. God had originally told them to disperse and replenish the earth: they build this beacon tower to hinder that; whereon God scatters them in judgment. He has His way eventually (as always), and they have to submit; but whereas it should have been the submission of obedience and happiness, it is now brought about in the way of penalty, disaster, and to the race the permanent inconvenience of diverse speech. [ Louis le débonnaire. "It is seldom God sends such calamities on men as men bring upon themselves." — Jeremy Taylor. All the latest philological investigations tend to show that the great families of language have one origin.]

We are certainly in a position to calculate with greater exactitude the area of the earth’s surface. We are told it consists roughly of about 50,000,000 square miles. This reduced to square yards would be 154,880,000,000,000 square yards, that is a matter of 15 figures. If the human race be doubled each century for 60 centuries our calculations show that there would at the end of that time be only one square yard available for over 10,000 people.

It may be urged that the population of the earth has been greatly diminished by earthquakes, floods, fire, plagues, diseases, wars, bad seasons, producing lack of food, resulting in the death of millions by famines; and further that the effect at modern civilisation is to reduce the birth rate. On the other hand however, we know how civilised countries reduce the death rate by better sanitation, increased knowledge of hygiene and the laws of living, better medical knowledge and surgical skill and the like. Still there can be no doubt that on the whole the death rate must have been much higher in the past centuries, and the rate of increase therefore lower.

Notwithstanding all He foresaw of rebellion and bloodshed, God repeats in Gen. 9:7 His word to men, "Be fruitful and multiply; swarm in the earth and multiply in it." This they have assuredly done.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And fear of you and dread of you shall be upon every animal of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, with all that moves [on] the ground, and with all fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you: as the green herb I give you every thing. Only flesh with its life, its blood, ye shall not eat. And surely your blood [that] of your lives will I require: at every animal's hand will I require it; and at man's hand, at the hand of each [the blood] of his brother, will I require the man's life. [Whoso] sheds the man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in God's image made he the man. And ye, be fruitful and multiply; swarm on the earth and multiply on it" (chap. 9:1-7).

The earth itself having been purged by water, furnishing a totally new condition of circumstances for mankind and animals, now God establishes man in a new dispensation of things, blessing Noah and his sons with the promise of fruitfulness and of their multiplying to fill the earth that had been so reduced in the number of its inhabitants. God had told Adam and his wife to "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen.1:28). The same cannot be said to Noah because the entrance of sin spoiled this dominion.