These terms indicate active power or rule involving physical force or effort (see also Jeremiah 34:16; Esther 7:8; Joshua 18:1; Isaiah 14:2; Ezekiel 29:15). Active rule is not destructive, as creation is meant to sustain people. Humanity is instructed to keep creation under control—to keep the chaotic conditions that God subdued at bay. Mankind is thus appointed as God’s royal representatives, vice-regents to rule the earth in his place.1
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.”