God set a rainbow in the clouds as the sign of the covenant after Noah’s Ark story.
In Genesis 9, God establishes a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and every living creature after the Flood. The rainbow is described as the sign that God will remember this everlasting covenant and will not again destroy all flesh with a flood. The text presents the rainbow as a visible sign in the clouds.
The covenant is broader than Noah’s immediate family: it includes animals and the earth itself. This makes the rainbow a post-Flood covenant sign, not an object carried aboard the Ark or a signal used to navigate it.
Rainbows are naturally produced when sunlight is refracted, reflected, and dispersed by water droplets. Genesis uses that familiar atmospheric phenomenon within its theological narrative. Scientific explanations of rainbows and the biblical meaning assigned to the sign address different kinds of questions and should not be treated as interchangeable claims.