At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: But in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.
In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined (ESV).
Proverbs 14:28
This is one of those proverbs that positively collides with the received wisdom of the secular world, which regards people as consumers and as a drain on resources. The biblical worldview couldn’t be in greater opposition. People—provided they are living under the authority of God and His law—are a resource, not a drain. After all, we were born into this world with two hands, and only one mouth.
So let us take this proverb at face value. The Bible teaches that a large population is a king’s glory (or a president’s), while a population dearth is the ruination of a country. Having children is a political glory, and not just a familial one. This position is, of course, easy to mock—“have babies for Mother Russia,” or “lie back and think of England.”
What then is overpopulation? Is there such a thing? Yes, but we must be careful with our definitions. A region is overpopulated when a population is incapable of feeding itself. This might be temporary (as in a famine), or it might be the result of a thoughtless consumption of resources, such as overgrazing, and then the nomadic tribe has to move on. But in the modern world, such a condition is most usually the result of foolish and counterproductive economic policies. In a word, socialism is a driver of overpopulation.
In a well-ordered nation, where the markets are free, the citizens as a whole will produce far more than they will consume. And the more the merrier.
