Genesis 9:8-17

God’s covenant with Noah (9:8-17)

A covenant was an agreement between two parties that carried with it obligations and possibly benefits or punishments, depending on whether a person kept or broke the covenant. Covenants to which God was a party, however, differed from covenants between people in that they were not agreements between equals. God was always the giver and the other person the receiver. The covenant promises originated in the grace of God and were guaranteed solely by him.Earlier God had made a covenant promise to Noah to save him and his family (see 6:18). After the flood God made another covenant promise, and, like the first, it originated entirely in God’s grace. The covenant was made not with Noah as an individual but with all earthly life through him. God would never again destroy earthly life by a flood (8-11). God pointed Noah to the rainbow as his sign to all generations that the covenant depended entirely upon him for its fulfilment (12-17).