Verse

Genesis 1:12

ESV The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
NIV The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
NASB The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
CSB The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
NLT The land produced vegetation — all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
KJV And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
NKJV And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

What does Genesis 1:12 mean?

This verse nearly repeats the language of the previous verse. God commanded something to happen on earth: the development of plants and trees. This verse describes this very thing happening, exactly as God declared it. Plants and trees of many kinds came into being, and each of them carried the seed that would cause the next generation of those specific plants and trees to grow on their own.

Another key fact to take from this account is that God built reproduction into His creation from the very start. His intent is clear: He would not create the world over and over again. He would create it all once. He would make it good, and He would build into His good creation the ability to keep recreating itself according the kind—of plant, in this case—which it was.

Genesis 1 provokes various debates and conversations about how and when God created, and how or if that creation has changed since the initial creation. What is clear is that the Bible intends us to understand that God, and God alone, made living things with the intent of them reproducing, from the very beginning.
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