with them at the very beginning, but is on the contrary one that is written into the very constitution of things. His grace and providence will overshadow sinful humanity as surely as the rainbow follows the storm. It is only in the story that the rainbow is created now. The Hebrews knew and we know that it has always been there. Divested of its historical trappings, the deepest lesson of the Flood story is not that the wicked are going to be destroyed and that only the righteous will be saved. It