I Saw the Sign

When we left off last Sunday, we saw Noah at the scene of sacrifice. The flood that broke down the world is over; the storms are a painful memory. Slowly, slowly had the seas drained back to their places; the land was dry again. Noah had stepped forth, releasing creation back to itself. He'd gathered some from each kind of clean animal, a sampler platter of the creatures of land and air, and made them a gift, blazing and smoldering before the LORD whose wrath had seemed so relentless (Genesis 8:20). Before the flood, God had reacted in his heart to what he “saw” in the earth (Genesis 6:5). Now “the LORD said in his heart” as prompted by what he “smelled,” this “restful aroma” of Noah's gift of gratitude, this labor of love atoning for all the world (Genesis 8:21).

What follows in these next lines of Scripture is a snapshot of God's “interior monologue,” a matter kept totally (for now) between God and his own heavenly heart, as it were.¹ And since over these past weeks we've been holding Genesis up alongside pagan parallels to the story of the flood and its aftermath, this is an instructive spot. What happens among the pagan gods after they smell (and eat) their man's sacrifice? Well, naturally, they begin to bicker. The mother goddess “arose to complain against all of them,” accusing the flood-sending god Enlil of wanton destruction: “Your mouth issued a final verdict,” she says, “now their bright faces are dark!”² Enlil hadn't shown up on time to dinner, but when he does, he's filled with utter rage to see the boat. “How did a man survive the catastrophe?” he wants to know.³ “No one was to survive the slaughter!”⁴

Out of mortal earshot, the gods of the pagans are in bitter conflict after the sacrifice. But out of the earshot of Noah and his family, the heart of the one true God is in no conflict at all; he's perfectly at rest within himself. Unlike the kindly mother-goddess, the LORD doesn't take a sentimental, weepy view of his creations. “The forming of humanity's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) – to be sure, that's a milder statement than what God saw before the flood, that “every forming of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).⁵ But what prevailed before the flood, humanity's youth in its inaugural steps east of Eden, differs only in degree, not in kind, from what you'll find in every neighborhood.⁶ Without God's grace keeping a tight leash on our inherited animal instincts, our wills are wibbly-wobbly as a bike with a bad chain. So we're not merely tender darlings, innocent victims of divine caprice. Our bright faces still conceal hearts of midnight, factories that manufacture misshapen things. “The heart of man addictively hastens to sins.”⁷

So the LORD differs from the mother-goddess, but he also isn't like Enlil, outraged at human life. Oh, he could justifiably take the Enlil path, striving in fury to abolish humanity altogether. Or he could let the problem build back up to where it was before, and solve it with a sequel flood. But “even if he punished the race of men again, punishment leads more to fear of the law and the knowledge of discipline than the transformation of nature, which can be corrected in some respects but cannot be changed in all.”⁸ A flood can hit the reset button on human population, but not human nature. And so “when it was over, they would again entangle themselves in vices and crimes.”⁹ Thus, “if God were to deal with man according to his deserts, a regular flood would be needed.”¹⁰ That would create a continual cycle, where every few millennia God would have to find a new Noah to build a new ark to save the seed of life as God yet again reset creation to zero.

So long as the human heart remains a corrupting presence on the earth, it seems as though there are only two ways forward: the Enlil option or the endless cycle. But where before God resolved to “blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground” (Genesis 6:7), now he determines to “never again diminish any more the ground because of man” (Genesis 8:21).¹¹ The earth has been baptized in the flood, and a baptism can't be repeated in a cycle.¹² Nor will God become an Enlil: he now commits himself to this world, and not another.¹³

“As long as all the days of the earth,” he decides, “seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). The words cover all the seasons and all the times of day. Both the daily and the seasonal cycle were irrelevant on the ark: everything's the same dreary darkness, no season has a monopoly on wet or dry, and there can be no sowing or harvesting.¹⁴ During the flood, for all practical purposes, “time effectively ceases to exist.”¹⁵ That's what God decides against again.

The cycles our lives depend on will keep going. They won't stop or stagnate. Admittedly, some years things might still get weird. Thanks to a couple years of volcanic eruptions before hand, 1816 became the 'year without a summer,' many places seeing frost and snow through June and August.¹⁶ But despite however we could corrupt the climate, God ensures an underlying “fixed order of seasons for the perseverance of the world,”¹⁷ for “the ongoing stability and the fertility of the world.”¹⁸ And this fixed order will testify to his all-pervasive providence. Like we sang earlier, “Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their courses above, join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.”¹⁹

Now, at this point in the pagan story, Enki or Ea, the god of wisdom who saved the boat-builder, is called on by Enlil to, in essence, defend his actions. He comes back with three arguments. First, he says, he did it “for your sakes,” since (as we heard last week) the gods would starve without human service.²⁰ Obviously, the Bible has no need for that argument, since God cherishes us out of love and not need. Second, argues Ea, the flood was a hasty move “without deliberation,” one the other gods were effectively bullied into authorizing.²¹ In the Bible, God doesn't second-guess whether the flood was right and wise; he knows it was.²² But third, argues Ea, mass collective punishment isn't the way to go: “Only culprits should bear the crime, only the guilty should bear the guilt!”²³ And here our God goes even further. Even if guilt again is universal, “never again will I any more strike down every living thing, as I have done” (Genesis 8:21). Even when we're most begging for it, in God's global will, “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13), adding unearned millennia to the calendar.²⁴

At this point, though, this is still that interior monologue in God's heart. Noah can't hear any of this. From his perspective, he's made his sacrifice, and there's yet been no reaction. And oh, does Noah ever need a reaction. Put yourself in his shoes. To hear about the flood is one thing; to experience it is another. Outside his walls, every person in the world he knew except seven was killed in a cataclysm. The remaining eight people have been cooped up in a dark, dank, reeking zoo for a whole year. What are the odds Noah doesn't have PTSD after this? He and his family have been through maybe the most traumatizing possible experience.

So what happens the first time Noah sees a cloud in the sky? What happens when a raindrop hits the bridge of his nose? One old saint speculated, and I think he had to be right, that “it was likely that, if some light shower were to happen to fall, he would be bound to become distraught... The odds were that this blessed man would be utterly terrified at even a passing shower.”²⁵ And even without a cloud in the sky, after enduring that year in the ark, how could Noah or Mrs. Noah or the kids not step out on the mountain terrified that, if God had been willing to go that far once, he'd do it again if they slipped up – maybe even “annually inundate the earth?”²⁶

If God means for human life to go on, that climate of constant fear and terror can't stay. We can't live like that. We'd never achieve anything; we could never commit to a world we dread will melt away beneath our feet at any moment.²⁷ If Noah and his family are to build up a world again, they need to know it stands a chance, that it will make a difference, that their works can have some lasting meaning.²⁸ To believe in purpose and hope, that we won't ultimately be crushed to dust, is “absolutely indispensable to all higher human possibilities.”²⁹

So, in chapter 9, God goes public with what he's told himself in private – as if to say, “Do not fear, O Noah, I am with you!”³⁰ God “wanted to deliver us from the fears of floods, that we might not think, each time we see violent rains, that the utter destruction will happen again.”³¹ The next cloud Noah sees will be suitably met, not with an ark, but with an umbrella – that's what God wants Noah to know. But the amazing thing we read next is that “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them” (Genesis 9:1), that “God said to Noah and to his sons with him” (Genesis 9:8). For the first time, Noah's not alone in hearing the voice of the Lord. Up until now, if Japheth wanted to know God's word, he had to ask Dad. But for the first time, Shem and Ham and Japheth are included in receiving revelation. God's call is no longer to one man alone; now it refracts out, split like light through a prism, to this diverse rainbow of families headed by Noah's sons.³²

In the original creation, no sooner had God made humanity than “God blessed them” (Genesis 1:28). And now, despite the impending failures of some of those to whom he's speaking, “God blessed Noah and his sons” too (Genesis 9:1). In the beginning, God blessed the first humans to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Now, in this second world, God offers Noah and his sons “the blessing which the first Adam had received,”³³ bidding them “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).

And you might think that's totally natural, but here's where Genesis just wrecks the pagan versions of this story. Remember, to the pagan mind, our multiplication was the problem solved by the flood. To the pagan mind, even the god who rescued us agreed that the human problem needed a solution, just not a final one. In one version, he suggested lions, wolves, famines, and wars as suitable methods to thin the human herd.³⁴ In another version, he comes up with celibate priestesses, infertility, and infant mortality – all ways to divinely fight human fruitfulness.³⁵ Sadly, this pagan view of natural human fertility as an evil has seen a major resurgence today. Yet even after the flood, Genesis offers a “conscious rejection” of that entire idea.³⁶ Even after seeing what the human heart is like, God is still eager for Noah's family to begin filling the earth with God's image again. Our conservation efforts were never meant to exclude ourselves. So God blesses us, that a new world might see a new human race dancing in every field, pracing through every forest, singing from every mountaintop, starry-eyed in every valley, to “fill the earth like a school of fish multiplying in the waves.”³⁷ God loves human life!

We'll return next week to the meat of God's first speech, but for his second, “God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 'And I – behold!'” (Genesis 9:8-9), the exact phrasing he used to tell Noah: “And I, behold, will bring a flood of waters upon the earth” (Genesis 6:17). That's meant to get our attention. But this time, building on his earlier promise (Genesis 6:18), he says: “I, behold, establish my covenant with you and your seed after you” (Genesis 9:9). It's “an agreement or promise that binds together that which is naturally... separate and apart.”³⁸ A covenant is more than mere words; it's a legal commitment with “a firm guarantee.”³⁹

This here is the first of four major covenants in the Old Testament, the others being those of Abraham, Moses, and David.⁴⁰ But this one is specifically a grant covenant, one that, in response to some display of merit (say, Noah offering a soothing aroma of sacrifice), promises unconditional blessings that will be shared not just with the original recipients but with their heirs after them.⁴¹ And this has no parallel in any of the pagan versions of this story.⁴² They have no covenants. Only Genesis knows about this.

As a grant covenant “between me and you” (Genesis 9:15), “with you and your seed after you” (Genesis 9:9), neither Noah nor his sons have anything to do with setting it up. There's nowhere for Ham to sign. Shem's yes isn't required. They all become parties by God's solemn say-so.⁴³ And if that's so for them, how much more for us? As Noah's seed after him, we receive this covenant in full by the mere fact of existing where and when we do. If that weren't enough, it even goes beyond humanity.⁴⁴ This covenant is made “with every living being that's with you: birds, beasts, and every living thing of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark” (Genesis 9:10), “every living being that is with you” (Genesis 9:12). God gives himself no wiggle room: “It is for every living thing of the earth” (Genesis 9:10), “every living being of all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:16). A covenant is here made, not just with me, but with the cats who are undoubtedly snoozing safely on my sofa.

So what are the terms of this covenant? Only this: “that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to ruin the earth” (Genesis 9:11). God commits himself equally here to “the preservation and care of all living species on the earth.”⁴⁵ In giving this covenant, God “gives a fundamental 'yes' to earth and creatures.”⁴⁶ It's like how the United Nations Charter commits all the member states to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means.”⁴⁷ Just so, in the Noah Charter, God drafts a treaty with the world, a “covenant of peace” as Isaiah calls it (Isaiah 54:10). But this one is unilateral. “God thus bound himself beforehand by this promise so that, even if mankind were constantly to follow the evil thoughts of their inclination,” still God “would never again bring a flood” to ruin the earth or cut off all life from the earth.⁴⁸ No matter how much our corruption stabs at creation or Creator, God will not let go of his “voluntary and permanent self-restraint.”⁴⁹ He reserves the right to lesser judgments as needed by individuals or nations, but each will target only some flesh, not all flesh.⁵⁰ And they'll always be in service of God's “plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God hereby obligates himself to further the goodness of this world, working with us despite our many flaws.⁵¹ And so, in effect, God “swore by his own great name” not to wage total war on the inhabitants of earth again.⁵²

Now, at this point in the pagan story, there's one more thing the gods do. After the sacrifice, as the mother-goddess is mourning her human children who died like flies, she lifts up this necklace which Anu, father of the gods, had given her when wooing her.⁵³ It's a necklace of jeweled beads carved to look like flies. Lifting it, she shouted that these flies around her neck would be her reminder every day of the grief the flood had brought.⁵⁴ “Gods! I will hang these flies like beads around my neck, to remind me of these days – I must never forget!”⁵⁵

A similar trigger for divine remembrance shows up in the Bible, but instead of a goddess's jewelry, it's God's manly war weapon – his bow. The psalms aren't shy about imagining God storming in with a storm, wielding his bow as a weapon whereby “the Most High... sent out his arrows” (Psalm 18:13-14). Babylon's favorite story of creation, where the god Bel used his bow and arrow to defeat the chaos-goddess Tiamat so that he could carve up her body to make the world, says that afterwards, Anu “lifted [his bow] up in the divine assembly; he kissed the bow... Then he called the names of the bow... With the third name, 'Bow Star,' he made it to shine in the sky; he fixed its heavenly position along with its divine brothers.”⁵⁶ Just as Anu put Bel's bow in the starry sky, so the LORD here declares, “I set my bow in the clouds” (Genesis 9:13).

When Bel's bow became a star, it was a tribute to his triumphant might. But as Isaiah says, “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts..., they go into captivity” (Isaiah 46:1-2). In that very same chapter, the LORD announces, “I am God, and there is no other! … My salvation will not delay!” (Isaiah 46:9, 13). Then a young prophet, exiled to Flood Hill in Babylon's hinterlands, saw a marvelous vision: fiery creatures with the sky over their heads, and over this sky a lapus-lazuli throne on which he saw “the likeness of the glory of the LORD..., and there was brightness around him: like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of brightness all around” (Ezekiel 1:26-28). This rainbow is God's true triumphant glory. Before, God “saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt” (Genesis 6:12); now, whenever he'll “see” his “bow in the clouds” (Genesis 9:16), he'll take his eye off our earthly corruption to behold his heavenly coloration; he'll look on his own splendor in place of our shabbiness, his own grace in place of our grossness.⁵⁷

But why a bow, of all things? Well, if it were a literal bow resting on the clouds, is it aimed at us, ready to fire? No! It's turned backwards, which is how ancient archers signaled that they meant no further harm – it was a showy display of good trigger discipline.⁵⁸ Again, it's like with the UN, where we have treaties aimed at control of nuclear weapons. Well, God's bow is a weapon of mass destruction, and this is a one-sided disarmament treaty: God binds himself to turn back his weapon of mass destruction away from us, to never use it like that.⁵⁹ His very weapon of war becomes thus “a token of reconciliation between God and man” and every creature.⁶⁰

Earlier, the turning point of the story came when “God remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1). Until then, the storm raged, the flood prevailed, death and chaos were winning the night. But when God remembered, creation began anew, the winds of salvation blew, the love of God became the light of day. And this bow puts us all under the same stoplight. When he sees it, he'll remember us like Noah, and for us creation will be made fresh, for us the winds of salvation will blow, for us the love of God will become our light of day (Genesis 9:15). Storms die when God remembers, when God's hand of love won't let go! This sign isn't to cause him to remember, but to show us that he'll remember, “that, when we see the sign, we may take heart at God's promise, especially as it is impossible for God's promises to fail.”⁶¹ God is more gracious than we are vicious; his mountain of mercy more than plugs our pits of despair; and so “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Something as pretty and ordinary as a rainbow is thus invested with an almost sacramental significance, one that outstrips its nature. Who can take a rainbow for granted once it's made “the sign of the Creator's commitment” to his creation?⁶² And that commitment isn't just a treaty with a 25-year term, like the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. It's an “everlasting covenant” between God and the whole living creation (Genesis 9:16), “a pledge of faithfulness between [God] and them forever, as long as heaven is above the earth,”⁶³ “coterminous with the duration of the world.”⁶⁴ And it holds good for us all whether we live well or not, whether we believe or not.

But imagine if it didn't. Isaiah had to imagine; he had a terrifying vision that “the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have... broken the eternal covenant; therefore a curse devours the earth” (Isaiah 24:5).⁶⁵ It would be terrible for this covenant to fail: “The earth is utterly broken..., its transgression lies heavy upon it; it falls and will not rise again” (Isaiah 24:19-20). That's what we could expect, if the mercies of God depended on us. But later came a voice of hope. These days of Israel's desolation, said God, were “like the days of Noah to me: As I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you” (Isaiah 54:9). “In overflowing anger, for a moment I hid my face from you; but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:8). “For the mountains may depart, and the hills may be moved, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed” (Isaiah 54:10). God's faithful love and compassion, here and now for his faithless people, is as trustworthy each moment as the time-tested reliability of the covenant with all creation.⁶⁶ “For your Maker is your Husband; the LORD of Hosts is his name..., the God of the whole earth” (Isaiah 54:6).

Ezekiel saw that the covenant of Noah would be made something new, something bigger and better: “I will make a covenant of peace with them,” God says, “an everlasting covenant..., and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 37:26-27). And to make that happen, God sent forth his Son, since “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). The covenant of Noah could overlook the darksome inventiveness of the human heart; only the gracious covenant of Jesus can heal it. That's why Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15), bringing about an “eternal covenant” between “the God of Peace” and this world of war (Hebrews 13:20). Better than the rainbow, the covenant sign of remembrance is that “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup... in remembrance of [the Lord Jesus]... you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).⁶⁷

The covenant of Noah stands firm “until the appointed times are fulfilled; but when the years appointed for the world are fulfilled,”⁶⁸ then “by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7). For then, from the Enthroned God ringed by his rainbow, “earth and sky flee away, and no place is found for them” (Revelation 20:11). So long shall the covenant of Noah last. But where the covenant of Noah has no power to reach, the covenant of Jesus does: into “a new heaven and a new earth..., and the holy city... prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” where “the dwelling place of God is with man!” (Revelation 21:1-3). For what the covenant of Noah whispers, the covenant of Jesus shouts in glad acclamation, that the Love of God that seeks and stalks and stands us up again from death will not let his creation go!⁶⁹ Then “the Lord their God will be their light,” an eternal rainbow of glory 'round us all, as we, the Christ-saved seed of Noah reborn in the gospel, shall “reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5). Hallelujah! Amen.

1  David W. Cotter, Genesis, Berit Olam (Liturgical Press, 2003), 59.

2  Atrahasis: C₁ v.36"-41", in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 35.

3  Atrahasis III.vi.5-10, in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, 2005), 252.

4  Gilgamesh XI.176, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 106.

5  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 59.

6  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 150-151.

7  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 22 §81, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:81.

8  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 22 §80, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:80.

9  Bede, On Genesis 8:21, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:202.

10  Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 139.

11  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 142.

12  Bede, On Genesis 9:8-11, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:207.

13  Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2023), 9.

14  Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 6.13.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:143; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 27.11, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:171; James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 63.

15  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 88.

16  William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman, The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History (St. Martin's Press, 2013).

17  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 23 §82, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:82.

18  Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 61.

19  Thomas O. Chisholm, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, and Other Song Lyrics and Poems (Glendale Press, 1956), 7.

20  Atrahasis III.vi.18-19, in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, 2005), 252.

21  Atrahasis: C₁ vi.20-21, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 37; cf. Gilgamesh XI.181-183, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 106.

22  Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 113.

23  Gilgamesh XI.184-185, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 107; cf. Atrahasis: C₁ vi.22-27, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 37.

24  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 310.

25  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 28.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:185.

26  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.96, in Loeb Classical Library 242:47.

27  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 60.

28  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 108.

29  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 188.

30  1QapGen 11.15, in Daniel Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation (Brill, 2009), 54.

31  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance and Almsgiving 6.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 96:79.

32  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 96.

33  Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 53, in Library of Early Christianity 1:113.

34  Gilgamesh XI.188-195, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 107.

35  Atrahasis: C₁ vi.41'-vii.11, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 36-37.

36  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 313; cf. Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading (Brill, 2011), 258.

37  Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 3.11, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:307.

38  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 188.

39  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 28.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:186.

40  Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1-11 (Eerdmans, 1988), 104.

41  Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God's Saving Promises (Yale University Press, 2009), 93-96.

42  Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate (IVP Academic, 2018), 83.

43  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 164.

44  James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 64.

45  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 146.

46  Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 104.

47  United Nations Charter, ch.1, art.2, no.4. <https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1>.

48  Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 6.13.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:142.

49  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 188.

50  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 8:21, in Luther's Works 2:118.

51  Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2023), 8-9.

52  1 Enoch 55:2, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:38.

53  Gilgamesh XI.164-165, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 106.

54  Atrahasis: C₁ vi.2-4, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 35.

55  Gilgamesh XI.166-167, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 106.  Some scholars have theorized that some Assyrians and Babylonians perhaps believed that this sparkly necklace of the mother-goddess was related to the rainbow that appeared after the rain – see, e.g., Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading (Brill, 2011), 64, and Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate (IVP Academic, 2018), 82.

56  Enuma elish VI.86-91, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 115.

57  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 147.

58  Luis Gustavo Assis, “How to Interpret the Sign of the קשת in Genesis 9?”, Die Welt des Orients 52/1 (2022): 49-50.

59  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 166; Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God (IVP Academic, 2023), 82.

60  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 63.

61  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 28.7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:188.

62  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 116.

63  1 Enoch 55:2, in George W.E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Fortress Press, 2012), 69.

64  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 28.6, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:187.

65  Steven D. Mason, “Another Flood? Genesis 9 and Isaiah's Broken Eternal Covenant,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32/2 (2007): 179-180; Richard Schultz, “Building on the Beginnings: Isaiah's Diverse Uses of Genesis,” in Wilson de Angelo Cunha and Andrew T. Abernathy, eds., Isaiah and Intertextuality: Isaiah and Israel's Scriptures (Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 8-9.

66  Richard Schultz, “Building on the Beginnings: Isaiah's Diverse Uses of Genesis,” in Wilson de Angelo Cunha and Andrew T. Abernathy, eds., Isaiah and Intertextuality: Isaiah and Israel's Scriptures (Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 10.

67  Patrick Henry Reardon, Creation and the Patriarchal Histories: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Genesis (Conciliar Press, 2008), 63-64.

68  Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 3.9-10, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:307.

69  George Matheson, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” in George Matheson, Sacred Songs, 3rd ed. (William Blackwood and Sons, 1904), 176-177.