Yes, Noah and his family were profoundly grateful to God for keeping them alive on the Ark. Yes, the first thing they did once they set foot on dry ground was to worship God (8:20). But even as God smelled the smoke of Noah’s sacrifice, God observed that “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (8:21). And that evil was soon revealed in Noah’s drunkenness, as well as in his son Canaan’s callous irreverence (9:21-22). So here’s the sad truth: even though the waters of the flood washed away all the consequences of human sin from the earth, they were unable to reach the real source of the problem – our self-centered hearts.

And that’s why the instructions God gave to Noah were so different from those He gave to Adam. Yes, God told both Adam and Noah to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (9:1; 1:28). But before Adam sinned, God had gone on to tell him to subdue the earth and to rule over all the plants and animals that inhabit it (1:28-29). In contrast, God simply tells still-sinful Noah that the animals have been given “into your hand” (9:2).

What does this mean? We, as Noah’s equally sinful descendants, are able to hunt and kill animals for food (9:3). We have even been able to domesticate a few species. But none of us have the kind of close relationship with the animals, the kind of absolute control that allowed Noah to keep mountain lions and white-tail deer in an enclosed space for a year without any problems. The animals may fear our power over them (9:2), but they no longer submit to us in the way they did on the day Adam gave them their names (1:19-20).

But just because our sin has made our job more difficult, we still have the responsibility to care for the animals and for one another. After all, in the days when blood symbolized life itself (Leviticus 17:11), God told Noah to be reverent even with the animals he killed for meat: returning their blood to the ground instead of consuming it was a way of acknowledging God to be the source and the ultimate ruler of all living things (9:4).

Indeed, God made it clear to Noah that human life was to be considered even more precious because, unlike all the other animals, men and women are made in the image of God (9:5-6). God thus prescribed the death penalty for murder even while He encouraged Noah to have lots of children for the same reason: human life is sacred. While it is clearly blasphemous to destroy an image of God, it is a righteous and holy thing to participate in the birth of those who, in all our diversity of appearance and ability, somehow display the glory of God to the rest of His creation.

So, the next time we see a rainbow, let it not just remind us of God’s forbearance, the fact that He is withholding His judgment on our increasingly sinful world. Let us also remember the solemn responsibility that all human beings have: to care for one another and for all of God’s wondrous creation with reverence.

Genesis 9:1-17 (NASB)

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
2 “And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.
3 “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.
4 “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
5 “And surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
7 “And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,
9 “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you;
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 comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.
11 “And I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations;
13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.
14 “And it shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud,
15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”