'Saying' in the Bible

God blessed them by saying, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the oceans. Let the birds multiply throughout the earth!"

God blessed the humans by saying to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it! Be masters over the fish in the ocean, the birds that fly, and every living thing that crawls on the earth!"

because Abraham kept saying about his wife Sarah, "She is my sister," King Abimelech of Gerar summoned them and took Sarah into his household.

Then she went and sat by herself about a distance of a bowshot away, because she kept saying to herself, "I can't bear to watch the child die!" That's why she sat a short distance away, crying aloud and weeping.

And so it was, as soon as he saw the nose ring and bracelets on his sister's wrists, and as soon as he heard what his sister Rebekah was saying about what the man had spoken to her, he went out to the man who was still standing by the camels at the spring!

As they were leaving, they all blessed Rebekah by saying, "Our sister, may you become the mother of tens of millions! May your descendants take over the city gates of those who hate them."

When Esau realized what his father Isaac was saying, he began to wail out loud bitterly. "Bless me," he cried, "even me, too, my father!"

So Esau harbored animosity toward Jacob because of the way his father had blessed him. Esau kept saying to himself, "The time to mourn for my father is very near. That's when I'm going to kill my brother Jacob."

Eventually, what Rebekah's older son Esau had been saying was reported to her, so she sent for her younger son Jacob and warned him, "Look! Your brother is planning to get even by killing you.

Leah conceived, bore a son, and named him Reuben, because she was saying, "The LORD had looked on my torture, so now my husband will love me."

"They've already left," the man answered. "I heard them saying that they were headed to Dothan." So Joseph followed his brothers to Dothan and found them there.

All his sons and daughters showed up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He kept saying, "Leave me alone! I'll go down to the next world, still mourning for my son." So Joseph's father wept for him.

Jacob would not send Joseph's brother Benjamin to accompany them, because he was saying, "I'm afraid that he'll come to some kind of harm."

Then Israel blessed Joseph by saying: "May the God in whose presence my ancestors Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has continued shepherding me my whole life even until today,