Genesis 9:13

I do set my bow in the cloud,.... Or "I have given", or "have set it" (p); which seems as if it was at that instant set; this is the same we call the "rainbow": and so Horace (q) calls it "arcus

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

I do set my bow; Heb. I have given, i.e. I will from time to time give and place. God calleth it his bow, partly because it was his workmanship, and chiefly because it was his pledge, and the seal of his promise. In the cloud, a proper seat for it; that they might now fetch an argument of faith from thence, whence before they had matter of just fear; and that which naturally was and is a sign of rain, might by this new appointment of God be turned into an assurance that there should be no such overflowing rain as now had been.

Genesis 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.Ver. 13. I do set my bow in the cloud, &c.] There it was before, but not till now as a token of the covenant; as still it is applied for a sign of grace from God to his Church. It is planted in the clouds, as if man were shooting at God, and not God at man. This bow with both ends downward, and back to heaven, must needs be an emblem of mercy; for he that shooteth, holdeth the back of the bow from him. Of God’ s bow we read, but not of his arrows, saith Ambrose on this text. "He hath bent his bow, and made it ready," saith David; but if "he ordain his arrows," it is not but "against the persecutors". If he shoot at his servants, it is as Jonathan shot at his friend David; to warn them, not to wound them. They are "arrows of the Lord’ s deliverance," which therefore he multiplies, that they may "compass him about with songs of deliverance". If he "bend his bow like an enemy," yet in wrath he remembereth mercy.

Verse 13. I do set my bow in the cloud] On the origin and nature of the rainbow there had been a great variety of conjectures, till Anthony de Dominis, bishop of Spalatro, in a treatise of his published by Bartholus in 1611, partly suggested the true cause of this phenomenon, which was afterwards fully explained and demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton. To enter into this subject here in detail would be improper; and therefore the less informed reader must have recourse to treatises on Optics for its full explanation. To readers in general it may be sufficient to say that the rainbow is a mere natural effect of a natural cause: 1. It is never seen but in showery weather. 2. Nor then unless the sun shines. 3. It never appears in any part of the heavens but in that opposite to the sun. 4. It never appears greater than a semicircle, but often much less. 5. It is always double, there being what is called the superior and inferior, or primary and secondary rainbow. 6. These bows exhibit the seven prismatic colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. 7. The whole of this phenomenon depends on the rays of the sun falling on spherical drops of water, and being in their passage through them, refracted and reflected. The formation of the primary and secondary rainbow depends on the two following propositions; 1. When the sun shines on the drops of rain as they are falling, the rays that come from those drops to the eye of the spectator, after ONE reflection and TWO refractions, produce the primary rainbow. 2. When the sun shines on the drops of rain as they are falling, the rays that come from those drops to the eye of the spectator after TWO reflections and TWO refractions, produce the secondary rainbow. The illustration of these propositions must be sought in treatises on Optics, assisted by plates. From the well-known cause of this phenomenon It cannot be rationally supposed that there was no rainbow in the heavens before the time mentioned in the text, for as the rainbow is the natural effect of the sun's rays falling on drops of water, and of their being refracted and reflected by them, it must have appeared at different times from the creation of the sun and the atmosphere.

13. I do set my bow in the cloud] Better, as marg., I have set. The Hebrew would literally be rendered “I do give,” or “have given.” The language is capable of two interpretations: (1) “I do now, and have just for the first time, set the rainbow in the sky, that mankind may hereafter have a token of the covenant between us.” (2) “I have appointed my bow, which you and mankind have often seen in the heavens, that henceforth it may be for a token of the covenant between us.” The former seems preferable. Hebrew legend explains thus the origin of the rainbow. Of course, it must have been visible from the first, being dependent upon the refraction of the light from the particles of water. The words “my bow” imply either that the bow was a familiar object, or that it was God’s gift. The giving of a “token” is not necessarily equivalent to the creation of a feature in nature (cf. Genesis 4:15). Nevertheless, the simplicity of the language favours the most literal interpretation; and the promise in Genesis 9:14-15 suggests that the rainbow was a new phenomenon.

13. Do set my bow — πϊϊι, I have set. The verb is in the perfect tense, but the perfect is often used with reference to future events in promises and assurances, where the speaker wishes to represent