After the Flood, God set a rainbow in the clouds as the sign of the covenant involving Noah’s Ark.
In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and every living creature that a flood would not again destroy all life on Earth. The rainbow is presented as the visible reminder of that promise. The covenant follows Noah’s departure from the ark and his offering on dry land.
The passage describes the rainbow as a sign in the clouds, not as a newly invented physical phenomenon. Its importance in the story is symbolic and covenantal. In later Jewish and Christian traditions, the rainbow remains strongly associated with preservation, divine promise, and the end of the Flood. The biblical account also extends the covenant beyond Noah’s immediate family to animals and the wider living world.