Genesis (American Standard Version, 1901) · 10 of 73 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
8:22-9:22
[8:22] While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
[9:1] And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
[9:2] And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered.
[9:3] Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all.
[9:4] But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
[9:5] And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man.
[9:6] Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
[9:7] And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
[9:8] And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
[9:9] And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
[9:10] and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that go out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.
[9:11] And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
[9:12] And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
[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.
[9:14] And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud,
[9:15] and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
[9:16] And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
[9:17] And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
[9:18] And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
[9:19] These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth overspread.
[9:20] And Noah began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard:
[9:21] and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
[9:22] And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
A binding agreement or relationship between the divine and a people or individual, establishing mutual obligations.
The entire central section (9:8–17) is devoted to God establishing a binding covenant with Noah, his seed, and every living creature, with the rainbow as its token—this is the passage's dominant theme.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage asserts that God actively orders the cosmos: seasons will not cease, the earth will not again be destroyed by flood, and the covenant guarantees the continued unfolding of creation toward intelligible ends.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is portrayed as an active, personal agent who speaks, blesses, establishes covenants, remembers, and looks upon the sign—clearly a responsive personal reality rather than an abstract principle.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
Verse 8:22 names the perpetual cyclical oscillation of seedtime/harvest, cold/heat, summer/winter, and day/night as an unceasing cosmic rhythm.