Commentary on Genesis 9:8-17

Cameron B.R. Howard

The Old Testament readings for the first three Sundays in Lent give us glimpses of three
covenants: Gods covenant with Noah, Gods covenant with Abraham, and Gods covenant
with Israel at Sinai.
While each covenant is distinct from the others, taken together they testify to Gods ongoing desire
to be in relationship with humanity.
In the ancient Near East, covenants were legal documents, cementing a relationship of mutual
obligation, usually between a greater power and a lesser power. For example, a conquering
kingdom might covenant not to destroy a losing kingdom, as long as the losers promised to fight
against the conquerors enemies and to support the conqueror with troops and supplies.1 The
obligations are indeed reciprocal, but the power dynamics are not often equal. The Sinai covenant
looks remarkably like one of these ancient legal treaties, and the Decalogue, which is read on the
third Sunday in Lent, functions as some of the stipulations of that covenant. The Noachic and
Abrahamic covenants, though, seem to be of a somewhat different stripe.2
The first thing to notice about Gods covenant with Noah is that it is not, in fact, with Noah alone,
nor with only his family, but rather with every living creature (Genesis 9:10), all flesh (v. 16). God
commits Gods self not just to humanity, but to all of creation. The second extraordinary detail about
this covenant is that it does not involve the legal reciprocities of a treaty. Instead, all of the
obligations rest with God. As Terence Fretheim points out, because this covenant comes without
condition, we might think of it as a promise rather than a treaty. God reaches out to the world, and
God does all the heavy lifting.
For additional exegetical detail I commend to you the two excellent commentaries archived on this
site for this text. I also recommend as a resource www.floodofnoah.com, which was created as a
space for biblical scholars to engage Darren Aronofskys 2014 film Noah. Here I will lift up a few
possible directions for preaching this passage:

God as a God who is moved: God is portrayed in this story, as well as through much of the Old
Testament, with characteristics that chafe against all the omni- categories we traditionally assign to
God: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, or, in the words of the hymn, Immortal, invisible, God
only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes These categories highlight the influence of
Greek tradition on Christianity, which often characterizes God as Aristotles Unmoved Mover. Yet, in
the flood story, Godregrets (Genesis 6:6), God grieves (6:6), God remembers (8:1), and God sets
Gods bow in the clouds so that God will remember (9:15). In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua
Heschel, God is the Most Moved Mover.3 It can be disconcerting to think of Gods needing a
reminder of Gods promises, as if the rainbow were a string tied around Gods finger, or an alert from
Gods Google calendar. Even so, during the season of Lent, the flood story reminds us that God has

an incarnational side in the Old Testament, too; that is, God has always desired relationship with,
and has been moved by the suffering of, humanity.
Covenant in our daily lives: In its most general meanings covenant is simply a sacred agreement.
Particularly in church contexts, the word covenant can be used for almost any kind of relationship,
from covenants governing behavior at church camps to celebrations of the covenant of marriage. But
it is worthwhile to pause and consider the nuances of some of this language. The parallels between
biblical covenants and ancient Near Eastern treaty forms emphasize the imbalance of power between
the two signatories. Certainly this imbalance holds true whenever God is one of the parties of a
biblical covenant, even if the other legal characteristics of covenant are absent (as in the covenants
with Noah and Abraham). One hopes marriage, though, is not an unequal power relationship. The
legal resonances of covenant also invite images of a quid pro quo connection; ones own obligations
are always dependent on the others fidelity to her or his obligations. Yet, in the Noachic covenant,
promises are made freely by God and do not count on any reciprocity from creation. The promises
made by a church community at a baptism, especially of an infant, are reminiscent of this
unconditional covenant. The preacher might challenge the congregation: When do we make promises
that we say are unconditional, and yet we end up expecting that we should receive equal payment
for keeping up our end of the bargain?
Care for creation: The ecological implications of the flood story are significant. We receive Gods
promise that God will never again destroy the earth by flood, yet human sin seems bent on the ruin of
creation. As climate change warms the earth and melts the ice caps, the prospect of a flooded earth
looms larger every day. Genesis 9 reminds us that God is in relationship not just with humanity, but
with all flesh; our living on the earth is bound up with the flourishing of all creation, and especially
non-human animals. As the Lenten season calls us to repentance, a sermon on the flood could
provide a call to repentance from our corporate sins of environmental degradation, as well as a call to
action for ecological justice.

Notes:
1

See, for example, Treaty between Mursilis and Duppi-Teshub, in Readings from the Ancient Near

East: Primary Sources for Old Testament Study (ed. B. Arnold and B. Beyer; Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2002), 98-100.
2

For more on biblical covenants, see Marvin A. Sweeney, Covenant in the Hebrew Bible, n.p.

[cited 4 Feb 2015]. Online: http://www.bibleodyssey.org/passages/related-articles/covenant-inthe-hebrew-bible

3

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).