The Everlasting Covenant with Noah in Genesis Chapter 9

The first reference to ברית עולם or everlasting covenant in the Bible occurs in Gen 9:16. God says to Noah: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant [ברית עולם] between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

The question is: what does the phrase eternal covenant refer to here? The answer is found in the immediately preceding context, but in investigating this context it is helpful to consider the parties to the covenant as well as the content of the covenant.

According to Gen 9:16, the parties of this particular covenant are God and all living creatures. But Gen 9:15 shows that the expression every living creature of all flesh in v. 16 includes Noah and his offspring—the word you in the expression between me and you in v. 15 is a plural pronoun. Genesis 9:13 speaks of the covenant as being made between God and the earth, but what is in view is particularly the living creatures who dwell on the earth. This is very clear in the wording of Gen 9:10-11 when God says to Noah: “Behold, I am establishing my covenant with you and your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, for every animal of the earth.” That Noah’s seed is included in the covenant suggests that this is a covenant that involves more parties than simply the human beings and animals alive at the time. Indeed, in Gen 9:12 it is spelled out that this covenant is being made for eternal [עולם] generations. In other words, this covenant was made with Noah, the land animals, and the winged creatures alive at the time together with their seed from that point in time ad infinitum. The parties of this covenant, therefore, are God as the first party and every living creature descended from Noah and the animals which had been housed in his ark as the second party.

Turning to consider the content of this covenant, it is helpful to note that the rainbow is the sign of this covenant (Gen 9:12, 16). The sign of the covenant encapsulates the core content of the covenant, which is in particular the promise not to destroy all flesh: “I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen 9:11); “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Gen 9:15).

Given the identification of the parties of this covenant as being Noah and his seed, as well as the animals and their subsequent generations in perpetuity, and given that the content of the covenant centers on the idea that there will not be another deluge akin to the flood of Noah, then it seems that the Noahic covenant is a ברית עולם due to the fact that the promise at the core of this covenant is eternal (i.e., from that point in time ever onwards) in its scope.

But what about William Dumbrell’s idea that the covenant ceremony in Gen 9 was confirming a covenant that had been made previously between God and creation? Is the Noahic covenant a ברית עולם in the sense that it continues on forever from the time of Noah, or rather because it is simply a confirmation of God’s eternal covenant with creation? I will endeavor to answer this question in my next post.