"I do set my Bow in the Cloud."--_Genesis 9:13._
THE sin that came into the world when Eve listened to the tempter had
grown as men multiplied and made each other worse. The wicked people
had been drowned in the Flood, and Noah, his sons and their wives, had
alone been saved in the Ark. After a whole year of being shut up there,
watching the earth, first drowned and then coming out of the water,
they had just come out on the fresh green earth, with all the animals
saved with them, when God spoke to them.
Then God made a promise to Noah. It was that no flood of water shall
ever drown all the world again, but spring, summer, autumn, and winter,
day and night, will go on to the end of the world, when it shall be
burnt up by fire, not drowned by water.
That Noah, and all of his after him, might feel sure that God in
His mercy will go on preserving us, and giving us days and nights,
seed-time and harvest, He gave us something to look at as a sign of His
promise. He so ordered the rays of light, that when they shine upon
drops of water in the air they cause beautiful colors, making part of
a circle, so as to form a bow. So when the sun shines on a cloud, as
it rains, the fair bright rainbow is seen, as a pledge to us of God's
merciful care and love to us.
[Illustration: NOAH AND HIS FAMILY LEAVING THE ARK.--Gen. 8:18, 19.]
[Illustration: NOAH'S SACRIFICE AFTER THE FLOOD.--Gen. 8:20.]
There is a rainbow round about the Throne of God in Heaven; and the
lovely rainbows that we see when the sun shines out, and the showers
drift away, are to put us in mind that we are safe under His care, in
right of His promise to Noah and his three sons, of whom the whole
earth was peopled. We are the children of his son Japhet, and all that
was then said to him belongs to us also. We should recollect it, and
put our trust in Him, and be thankful when we see the beautiful soft
arch that the Hands of the Almighty have bended, looking out of the
midst of the dark watery clouds.