DovBear on the Parsha

Everyone and his uncle knows Rashi's explanation for the six-fold language used here:

וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ--בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד; וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ, אֹתָם
And the sons of Israel were fruitful, and swarmed and multiplied, and grew very vast; and the land was filled with them.

He says, briefly, that this means to tell us Jewish children were born six at a time. Nice, and based on the midrash, but here's something else, something I like a little better:

The language the divine author [*] uses here appears to be a concious echo of the language used to describe the first 6 days of creation. On day 5, the waters "swarm with swarms of living creatures." Later that day, God says to the animals: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." On day 6, His blessing to the first couple is "'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth"

Fruitful. Multiply. Swarm. Fill the earth. The only term missing from the Genesis story is "grow very vast" and that is echoed in the promise God gave to Abraham (Gen 18:18) : "Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation" The word here for "great" is the word used in Shemos for vast: עָצוּם

Why is this the language used? Perhaps because the divine author wishes to tell us that the promise of creation is being fulfilled through these Isralites. Perhaps it's away of linking the stories, of showing us that the intention of creation, and the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham is soon to be realized through this nation.

[*] By "divine author, I mean God, but I wish to make it clear that he functioned like a human author purposelly choosing to tell his story in a certain way, and using certain words.