Almost everyone has stopped what they were doing to look at a rainbow. Most people do not know that the Bible says God looks at it too.
The rainbow is the first sign the Bible ties to a covenant, a promise you can see with your eyes. It came at the end of the worst disaster in the Bible's history, when Noah, his family and the animals walked out of the ark into a world that had been washed clean of nearly every living thing.
God's promises rainbow passage is short, about ten verses. But it answers some big questions. What exactly did God promise? Why would He promise it, when people were no better than before? And what does that sign in the clouds have to do with you on a gray afternoon thousands of years later? Let's take those one at a time.
Two promises after the flood, one silent and one spoken
Genesis records God's answer to the flood twice. The first time He said it in His heart. The second time He spoke it plainly so Noah's family could hear.
Said in His heart: Genesis 8
Noah's first act on dry ground was to build an altar and worship. Then the Bible lets us hear God's private decision. He would not curse the ground again for man's sake. He would not strike down every living thing again. And as long as the earth lasted, the rhythm of the year would keep going.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22 (KJV)
Said out loud: Genesis 9
Then God spoke to Noah and his sons and made it formal. He called it a covenant, a binding agreement, and He made it with them, with their children after them and with every creature that came out of the ark. He gave it a sign everyone could see.
And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Genesis 9:11 (KJV)
Seedtime and harvest: the promise you live inside
We usually skip past Genesis 8:22, but it may be the promise you lean on most without noticing. Every spring planting, every harvest, every cold snap and every summer, every sunrise after a long night is God keeping His word to Noah.
Noah himself became a farmer after the flood. He would have planted with this promise in his ears. A farmer has to trust that the seasons will come back around, or he would never put seed in the ground. God made that trust safe.
That makes this one of the few promises in the Bible that truly covers every person alive, believer or not. The farmer who prays and the farmer who does not both get the rain. Jesus pointed to that same kindness when He said the Father sends rain on the just and on the unjust in Matthew 5:45.
Why did God promise not to flood the earth?
This is the most surprising part of the story. Read the reason God gives, and then read the reason the flood came in the first place.
Before the flood, Genesis 6:5 says God saw that every imagination of man's heart was only evil all the time. After the flood, God says He will never strike the earth that way again, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.
The same fact is given both times. Human hearts were bent toward evil before the water, and they still were after it. The flood did not fix people. So God chose a different way to deal with sin. Instead of wiping the world clean again, He would hold back His judgment and work patiently toward a real cure. Peter later wrote that the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, even while the ark was being built (1 Peter 3:20). The rainbow carries that same patience forward.
That is good news for anyone who knows their own heart. The promise was not earned by people finally behaving. It was given because God decided to be merciful.
What God said He would do around the flood
You may see numbered lists of God's promises to Noah. Different teachers group the verses differently, so here are the main things the King James text has God saying He would do or give, from Genesis 6 to Genesis 9, so you can read each one for yourself.
- Establish His covenant with Noah, who would go into the ark with his wife, his sons and their wives (Genesis 6:18).
- Not curse the ground again because of people (Genesis 8:21).
- Not strike down every living thing again as He had done (Genesis 8:21).
- Keep the seasons and day and night going while the earth remains (Genesis 8:22).
- Bless Noah and his sons, put the fear of them on the animals and give them every moving thing for food, as He had given the green plants (Genesis 9:1 to 3).
- Hold people and animals to account for taking a human life (Genesis 9:5 to 6).
- Never again cut off all flesh by a flood, a covenant with Noah, his seed and every creature (Genesis 9:9 to 11).
- Look at the bow and remember the everlasting covenant whenever He brings a cloud over the earth (Genesis 9:14 to 16).
Notice who the covenant includes. Noah. His sons. Their children for all generations. The birds, the cattle and the wild animals. And in Genesis 9:13, the earth itself. No other covenant in the Bible is this wide. If you are alive on this planet, you are standing under it right now.
God said He would look at it
We tend to think the rainbow is there for us. Genesis 9:16 says something more tender: I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant.
God does not forget things, the way we forget an appointment. The Bible is speaking in a way people can grasp. Picture it like this. When the clouds pile up and people below get nervous, God is looking at the very same bow and holding to the very same word. You and He are looking at the sign together.
The bow also shows up in some of the Bible's grandest scenes. When Ezekiel saw the glory of the LORD, the brightness around it looked like the bow in the cloud on a rainy day (Ezekiel 1:28). When John was shown the throne of heaven in Revelation 4:3, a rainbow circled it like an emerald. The sign God gave Noah is pictured right at the center of His rule.
Isaiah used Noah's promise to make another one
Many centuries after Noah, God spoke through Isaiah to His people, who felt cast off and ashamed. He reached back to the flood to show them how firm His new promise was:
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.
Isaiah 54:9 (KJV)
The argument is simple. You have never seen the waters of Noah cover the earth again, have you? Then you can believe Me when I say My kindness will not leave you. The next verse adds that mountains may move and hills be taken away, but His kindness and His covenant of peace will stay.
This is how the rainbow speaks about every other promise. Each time you see it, you are seeing proof that God has kept one promise without a single break since the days of Noah. That is a strong reason to trust Him with the rest. Our guide God keeps His promises gathers more evidence from across the Bible.
What the rainbow does not promise
Being honest about the limits of a promise helps you trust it more, not less. The covenant rules out one thing: water wiping out all flesh across the whole earth. It does not promise that no river would ever overflow its banks, or that hurricanes would stop. Local floods still happen, and people still get hurt. If you have lived through one, the rainbow is not mocking you. God's promises of comfort and nearness are for you in that loss, and our page on promises of God for comfort is a good place to find them.
The rainbow also does not mean God will never judge the world. Jesus compared the days before His return to the days of Noah in Matthew 24:37. The promise is narrow and exact: never again by a flood of water over the whole earth. Within those lines, it has never failed.
Read them one at a time
Book One starts in Genesis and includes the promises God spoke around the flood, each on its own page with the King James verse, who it was made to, any condition, what it meant then, what it means for you and a short prayer. You can read the opening pages free with Look Inside on Amazon.