Bill wrote
<< I think the answer to your question is in Genesis 2:4-6. "...for the
Lord God had not sent rain on the earth..., but streams came up from the
earth and watered the whole surface of the ground..." The first time
rain is mentioned is Genesis 7:12 "And rain fell on the earth forty days
and forty nights." Of course the people that saw that rain died in the
Flood; Noah and his family were shut up in the Ark.
>>
Gen 7:12 is the third time the word "rain" occurs in the English OT. I think
the preceding verse is very relevant to answering the question about the
rainbow. In Gen 7:4, God says to Noah, "For yet seven days, and I will cause
it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."
If it had never rained before that, it seems Noah would have to have asked,
"What is "rain"? This would make the account very unusual. Gen 7:4 seems to
be assuming that Noah knew what rain was; and this suggests that it had
rained before God used the word. One could argue that no one had yet seen a
rainbow; but, that does not seem very likely either.
It could be that God had "set his bow" in the clouds many times before Gen 9;
but, not as a "token" of a covenant. There is a bit of a parallel to this in
God's making circumcision the "token of a covenant" (Gen 17:11), when
circumcision existed at least among other peoples prior to this.
Paul
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