I Will Not Destroy
Friday, July 25, 2025
I Will Not Destroy
[!Bible] Genesis 9:8-13 NRSVUE Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:8 OT
[!Bible] Deuteronomy 5:8-10 NRSVUE “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Today’s Lectio365 spoke about the Genesis passage in the context of family history—as a promise to Noah’s descendants never again to destroy the earth as in the flood. I doubt the historicity of the passage, but I can easily believe it was based on memories of cataclysmic events. There must have been oral traditions remembering ice ages and storms and floods that seemed to have destroyed the world and became worldwide disasters as they passed into the realm of myth and epic tales. Is the Noahic flood somehow different because it is from the mouth of the one true God? Given my skepticism about inerrancy, that’s not a slam dunk. I do believe it is a story that has survived millennia, and that in itself gives it more significance and heft. We’ve built a tradition, a body of interpretation, around the story that reveals what we believe is true and, perhaps, what we want to believe is true.
A devastating flood would have had lasting impacts on everyone where it hit—a year or more of crops could have been wiped out, houses destroyed, possessions washed away—and people would have wanted divine assurance that it would not happen again. That is what makes God’s promise to Noah so significant and a sign of God’s love. But does that exempt us from environmental disasters? Sadly, I don’t believe it does.
Pete Grieg prayed today for our national leaders to implement policies that cared for the natural world, to steward and protect it and not use it for selfish gain. The rape of the land instigated by the rich and powerful is a generational sin which will cause suffering, largely for the poor and unregarded, for generations to come. Storms are already wiping out cities, and the poor suffer the most. We are losing whole species to greed in extinctions that are not only avoidable but are the results of our actions. This is the sin of the fathers visited upon the third and fourth generations. I pray we will learn before we become extinct.