Genesis 9:16

16. And I will look upon it A tender and beautiful anthropomorphism . God remembers us in every earthly storm . The bow is a symbol of his tender look upon frail, sinning man . The fragment of a vast and glorious circle, formed from the sunshine and storm, it typifies eternal mercy blended with justice, as seen from earth; binding earth to heaven, it typifies God’s perpetual covenant . We hear scattered echoes of this promise from the heathen poetry and mythology . Homer calls the rainbow a sign, ( τερας . ) Iliad, 2: 324 . The Latin poets make Iris, or the rainbow, the messenger of the gods . Virgil, AEn. , 4:694; Ovid, Met . , 1,270 . The ancient Germans considered the bow as the bridge of the demigods, by which they went to and fro between heaven and earth; and the Indians, according to Kuhn, had a similar tradition. Compare Delitzsch.