Key Verse: Genesis 8:13 –

“I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

Have you ever had to reboot a computer, a router, or a cell phone? The memory of such devices can become corrupt or overloaded, making it necessary to hit “reset” or to unplug the device and start over.

A student once came by my office to express chagrin at her performance on a midterm exam. She explained that she had kept up with the assignments, but had a hard time being open to the new learnings that come with an academic study of scripture. “I just wish I could hit reset,” she said.

Sometimes we manage to mess things up and wish we could “hit reset” in our personal lives, or in our relationship with God. Have you ever felt that way? The human proclivity for falling short is well known. We often need a personal reboot: Christians call that “repentance.”
The season of Lent annually provides just that opportunity, and that’s why it’s so important for Christian believers. [DD]

This week’s lesson is the first of six lessons for this year’s Lenten season. All are from the Old Testament, and all of them deal with some aspect of the theme of “covenant.” Christian believers do not live under the same covenant(s) that the scriptures say God established with Israel, but under a new covenant in Christ. Even so, the concept of living in a covenant relationship with God is worth considerable reflection.

A new start (v. 1)

Our first text follows the biblical account of a destructive flood that God reportedly sent to cleanse the earth after humankind had proven to be irredeemably corrupt. Only the family of Noah, described as “a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (6:9), was spared. [DD]
Flood stories were common among ancient Near Eastern peoples, and even the biblical story is told in two versions. [DD] The earliest version of the post-flood account, attributed to an author known as the “Yahwist,” is found in 8:20-22. It describes Noah’s offering of a sacrifice. After smelling the pleasing smoky fragrance, Yahweh promised to “never again curse the ground because of humankind” or to “ever again destroy every creature as I have done,” because “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (8:21).

Today’s text, Genesis 9:1-17, is from the “Priestly” source, which was probably later. Its account of the post-deluvian exchange between God and Noah, like its version of the flood story, is considerably longer.

The account includes a divine blessing (“God blessed Noah and his sons”) and a reprise of Gen. 1:28-30, beginning with the familiar command to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (v. 1, repeated in v. 7). The writer sees the post-flood reset as similar to the first creation story (also P), in which God instructed humankind to populate the earth and care for it.

New rules (vv. 2-7)

The new command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” marks continuity with the creation story of Gen. 1:1-2:4a, but with a twist: life would be different. The post-creation story had expected both humans and animals to be vegetarians: “God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so” (1:29-30).

Now, however, humans are given authority to eat everything else, giving animals cause to fear them: “The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything” (vv. 2-3).

There is no mention of “clean” and “unclean” animals, because the Priestly writer did not recognize the dietary laws of kashrut (kosher foods) prior to Leviticus, when Moses reportedly handed down the first rules in an evolving system of dietary restrictions designed to make the Hebrews ethnically distinctive.

All animals were fair game: they could be killed and eaten so long as their blood was properly drained. Blood, as the source of life, belonged to God alone (v. 4).

The mention of blood led to a warning that humans should not kill each other (v. 5), making murder a capital offense – a penalty also known from the earliest extant law code, that of Ur-Nammu, a Sumerian king who lived in the 20th century BCE.

A primary reason for the command is obscured in most modern translations: in the context of a narrative in which only Noah’s family survived, anyone killed would be a close relative: the text identifies the victim as “his brother.” [DD] The poetic verse that follows gives an additional reason: human life should be respected because we are made in the image of God (v. 6).

On the one hand, the rule highlights the value of human life, but it also calls for the loss of another. Some supporters of capital punishment rely on biblical citations like this to justify state-sponsored killing. We should not neglect other teachings, however: Jesus called his followers to move beyond the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and learn to forgive rather than seek vengeance (Matt. 5:38-48).

Interestingly, the command to kill people who kill (which would decrease the population) is followed by a repetition of the command to “be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it” (v. 7).

A new promise (vv. 8-17)

The following verses are often referred to as the “Noahic Covenant,” mainly because the text says God told Noah and his sons “I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark” (vv. 8-10).

Covenants typically involve two parties who agree on mutually required commitments, but in this case the “covenant” is more of a straightforward promise from God. Other than the commands previously given, God asks nothing in return for the promise that “never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (v. 11).

Take note that the “covenant” – really a declaration of divine grace – is not just for the sake of humans, but for all living creatures of the earth. The earlier Yahwist’s version of God’s post-flood promise was simply that God would not curse the ground or destroy all living again (8:21): the Priestly writer was more focused on the promise that God would not do it by means of a flood.

In vv. 12-17 we find the text behind the favorite children’s story of how God gave the rainbow as a sign of the promise that humans need not fear another population-cleansing flood. Though it’s often told as if God created rainbows for that moment, rainbows have existed as long as there have been conditions in which sunlight is refracted through and reflected back from water droplets in the atmosphere. When seen from an airplane, rainbows form a full circle, but we are more familiar with the full or partial arc that we see from ground level.

The story says the rainbow was given as a sign of God’s promise not to send another flood, an indication that humans need not fear an inundation whenever they see a thunderstorm approaching.

Though we commonly use the word “rainbow,” the biblical story speaks only of a “bow,” the same word used for the weapon designed to shoot arrows. Many of Israel’s neighbors believed in storm gods, such as Baal Resheph, who were thought to shoot lightning bolts to the earth as an indication of divine anger.

The writer who preserved this story played off this belief to declare that God had set aside the divine war bow – pointing it away from the earth – and made it a symbol of peace. We often fail to note that the bow was to be a reminder to God, not to humans: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (v. 16).

As people familiar with modern meteorology, we look for something more in this story than an etiology for why rainbows exist. The story testifies of a belief that God not only created the earth, but continues to rule over all creation, and is capable of intervening in worldly matters.

The story reminds us that human sin matters and can lead to judgment, but it also points to the preeminence of divine grace: even in a world of people so degenerate that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (6:5), God found a way to show mercy and to offer humankind another chance.

Perhaps this story may also offer hope to us when we feel that we are drowning in the consequences of our sin: God’s ultimate intention is for our good, and grace reigns. [DD]