In the biblical Noah’s Ark account, God placed a rainbow in the clouds as the covenant sign.
Genesis 9 describes a covenant made after Noah, his family, and the animals left the Ark. God promises that a flood will not again destroy all life on Earth, and the rainbow is presented as the visible sign associated with that promise. The passage says the sign appears in the clouds.
The rainbow therefore belongs to the post-Flood covenant scene, not to the earlier search for dry land. In the story, Noah’s birds serve a different narrative purpose: they help indicate whether the waters have receded. Those episodes are often blended in simplified retellings.
The biblical text uses the rainbow as a theological symbol of remembrance and promise. Modern explanations of rainbows concern refraction, reflection, and dispersion of sunlight in water droplets, while the Genesis passage focuses on its covenant meaning.