To give Noah and his sons a firm assurance of the prosperous continuance of the human race, God condescended to establish a covenant with them and their descendants, and to confirm this covenant by a visible sign for all generations. בּרית הקים is not equivalent to בּרית כּרת; it does not denote the formal conclusion of an actual covenant, but the "setting up of a covenant," or the giving of a promise possessing the nature of a covenant. In summing up the animals in Genesis 9:10, the prepositions are accumulated: first בּ embracing the whole, then the partitive מן restricting the enumeration to those which went out of the ark, and lastly ל yl, "with regard to," extending it again to every individual. There was a correspondence between the covenant (Genesis 9:11) and the sign which was to keep it before the sight of men (Genesis 9:12): "I give (set) My bow in the cloud" (Genesis 9:13). When God gathers (ענן Genesis 9:14, lit., clouds) clouds over the earth, "the bow shall be seen in the cloud," and that not for man only, but for God also, who will look at the bow, "to remember His everlasting covenant." An "everlasting covenant" is a covenant "for perpetual generations," i.e., one which shall extend to all ages, even to the end of the world. The fact that God Himself would look at the bow and remember His covenant, was "a glorious and living expression of the great truth, that God's covenant signs, in which He has put His promises, are real vehicles of His grace, that they have power and essential worth not only with men, but also before God" (O. v. Gerlach). The establishment of the rainbow as a covenant sign of the promise that there should be no flood again, presupposes that it appeared then for the first time in the vault and clouds of heaven. From this it may be inferred, not that it did not rain before the flood, which could hardly be reconciled with Genesis 2:5, but that the atmosphere was differently constituted; a supposition in perfect harmony with the facts of natural history, which point to differences in the climate of the earth's surface before and after the flood. The fact that the rainbow, that "coloured splendour thrown by the bursting forth of the sun upon the departing clouds," is the result of the reciprocal action of light, and air, and water, is no disproof of the origin and design recorded here. For the laws of nature are ordained by God, and have their ultimate ground and purpose in the divine plan of the universe which links together both nature and grace. "Springing as it does from the effect of the sun upon the dark mass of clouds, it typifies the readiness of the heavenly to pervade the earthly; spread out as it is between heaven and earth, it proclaims peace between God and man; and whilst spanning the whole horizon, it teaches the all-embracing universality of the covenant of grace" (Delitzsch).

Genesis 9:15 Parallel Commentaries

remember.

Exodus 28:12 And you shall put the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial to the children of Israel...

Leviticus 26:42-45 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember...

Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God, he is God, the faithful God...

1 Kings 8:23 And he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath...

Nehemiah 9:32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keep covenant and mercy...

Psalm 106:45 And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

Jeremiah 14:21 Do not abhor us, for your name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of your glory: remember, break not your covenant with us.

Ezekiel 16:60 Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.

Luke 1:72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

the waters.

Isaiah 54:8-10 In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you...