Genesis 9:8-17

INTRODUCTION

The promise that God would never bring a flood upon the world was now incorporated into a covenant that God made with Noah, the patriarchal head of mankind after the flood.

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah refer back to this covenant as they stress the certainty of God’s future purposes and promises for His people.

Isaiah 54:9-10 To Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Jeremiah 33:25-26 Well, here's God's response: If my covenant with day and night wasn't in working order, if sky and earth weren't functioning the way I set them going, then, but only then, you might think I had disowned the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David, and that I wouldn't set up any of David's descendants over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as it is, I will give them back everything they've lost. The last word is, I will have mercy on them.

A covenant is a binding contract between God and man, one that God initiates and administers. The extent of the covenant is normally the very extremes of life and death. Here there is no blessing or cursing, only a promise never to destroy the earth by flood again.

GOD ESTABLISHES HIS COVENANT WITH NOAH

9:8-10 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: Now I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you — the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you — every living creature on earth.

A common aspect of any covenant between a king and a servant is that the king must be the one who initiates and establishes the binding agreement.

It is an emphatic construction in the Hebrew, and it signifies that, just as God certainly brought the flood, so He will surely make a covenant.

In addition, God calls it “My covenant”. The personal pronoun as a genitive suffix in the Hebrew reflects authorship and agency, that is, the covenant belongs to God, and He is offering it to the human race created in His image.

The pledge that God makes is not dependent on human beings or animals fulfilling certain obligations. No conditions are laid down.

THE CONTENTS OF THE COVENANT

9:11 I have established my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

In verse 9, a Hebrew Hiphil Present Participle (I establish) indicates the initial act of creating a covenant.

In verse 11, a Hebrew Hiphil Perfect Participle (I have established) is used to signify the maintaining and continuing of the covenant. It is not, therefore, a one-time event, but an ongoing event throughout the future.

When the word “all” is preceded by the Hebrew negative “lo” (never again), as it is here, it signifies absolute negation: “absolutely never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood”.

THE SIGN OF THE COVENANT

9:12-17 And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.  Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. So God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.

God now provides “the rainbow” as a physical “sign” for mankind that proclaims the reality of the covenant relationship. The Hebrew term for “sign” (oth), denotes a visible object that reflects a spiritual reality. It is like a billboard for all to see.

The rainbow, spanning from one end of the heaven to the other, would remind mankind that God’s promises were from eternity to eternity, from beginning to end.

For God to remember His covenant is just another way of saying He will never go back on His word.

God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not make it good? Numbers 23:19

It is not left to human beings to perform this covenant sign. In the case of other covenant signs like circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and the Lord’s Supper, God calls on His people to put them into practice. God alone sets His rainbow in the sky.

Everything about this sign is an encouragement to Noah that God will stand by His commitment. In spite of what the devil and humans might do, and in spite of terrible natural disasters that might happen in the future, God will never (underscore never) allow the whole earth to be destroyed by a flood again.

The presence of the sign would in itself have brought no comfort. It was the explanation of the rainbow’s function as a sign of the covenant that brought reassurance to Noah and his family.

The rainbow is the sign of God’s mercy towards this earth. When we see the rainbow, we can praise God that He has kept His promise down thousands of years. We can also be assured that He will continue to keep His promise until the day of final judgment.

CONCLUSION

This covenant must be seen in association with God’s promise in the Garden of Eden, of sending a “seed of the woman” (which later in Scripture we learn to be His Son, Jesus Christ) to deliver a fatal blow to the “seed of the serpent” (which we know to be Satan, the ruler of this world).

Nothing like a universal catastrophe must be allowed to take place again until God has fulfilled His redemptive purposes through His Son, Jesus Christ (the seed of the woman).

Romans 8:18-22 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. For the creation was subjected to God’s curse, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope the creation itself will be set free from death and decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.