Commentaire sur La Genèse 9:11

והקמתי AND I WILL ESTABLISH — I will give confirmation to my covenant; and in what consists this confirmation? “The sign of the rainbow”, as it goes on explaining at the end.

ולא יהיה עוד מבול לשחת הארץ, there will not ever again be the kind of catastrophe which will destroy the whole surface of the earth at the same time.

והקימותי את בריתי אתכם. And I will keep My covenant with you. We need to understand why the Torah repeated the promise that all flesh would not be destroyed again and that there would not be another deluge. If, as Rava had said in Shavuot 36, the reason is to give this assurance the status of an oath, our sages used both this and the second half of the verse, ולא יהיה המים for that purpose. They ignored 8,21 in that context. I have explained all that in connection with 8,21.

והקימותי, earlier the formulation had been הנני מקים. At that time G’d had not mentioned the substance of the covenant. Now the Torah spells out what G’d had had in mind with the line (in verse 9) ואני הנני מקים את בריתי. The promise not to wipe out כל בשר is parallel to the promise not to flood the entire universe with water again. In both instances G’d reserves the right to flood part of the earth or to destroy part of mankind. The promise does include the assurance that rain of the dimensions and duration experienced during the deluge will not occur again, ever. The words לשחת את הארץ are an illustration of what would happen if G’d would bring on another deluge.

“I will confirm My covenant.” Rashi is answering the question: Is it not already written (v. 9), ואני הנני מקים את בריתי, “I am making a covenant with you”?

והקימותי את בריתי, “I shall maintain My covenant as applicable, etc.” The reason why G-d’s promise not to bring on another deluge is repeated in the same verse, is to underline that even if the human race would again be guilty of similar conduct to that which had brought about the deluge, this covenant would not be considered by G-d as null and void.

Perhaps we need to understand this verse in light of what the Talmud says in Sotah 11. The Talmud there questions why the Torah used the singular when speaking of the Jewish nation in Exodus 1,10. Why did the Torah say הבה נתחכמה לו, "let us outsmart it," instead of הבה נתחכמה להם, "let us outsmart them." Rabbi Chamah says there that the pronoun לו refers to the saviour of the Jewish people, i.e. to G'd. The Egyptians wanted to kill the Jewish babies by drowning because G'd had sworn not to bring another deluge. The Egyptians were aware that G'd makes the punishment fit the crime and that therefore G'd's retribution would have to be by water. They were confident they could escape G'd's wrath because He had sworn not to bring on another deluge. They did not realise that G'd had only promised not to flood the whole earth at one time; G'd remained free to flood parts of the earth at any time. Besides, G'd's promise extended to the waters not "descending" upon man; if man decided to walk into the waters, as did the Egyptians in Exodus 14,27, this was not part of the oath at all. Thus far the Talmud in Sotah. According to the first statement in the verse לא יכרת כל בשר עוד ממי המבול, G'd undertook not to bring on a flood which would engulf everybody; He was free to kill part of mankind by means of a flood; according to the second half of the verse G'd undertook not to destroy the earth itself even if He were forced to bring on a partial flood. The second half of the verse is a promise to earth, not to man. It would not have sufficed to write merely: "there will not be another deluge." This is why the Torah adds: "all flesh will not again be cut off by the waters of a deluge." According to this explanation the repeated "לא" mentioned in our verse, which, according to Rava in Shavuot constitutes an oath, are the words לא יכרת and לא יהיה; it does not matter that the two "לא" are followed by different verbs (יכרת or יהיה), as long as the oath applies to the same facts, i.e. no total deluge.

[At this point the author engages in a lengthy dialectic about the statements in the Talmud concerning this and other matters where an all-inclusive statement is followed by a more restrictive one. As the matter is of interest to advanced students of the Talmud only, I have omitted it. Ed.]

Summing up the discussion of the Talmud the lesson is this. We must not worry as much about the exact parameters of G'd's oath, and whether destruction of earth by fire is included in the oath or not. What matters is that G'd reassured His creatures that the effort to procreate was not futile. Never again would a species or its habitat the earth, be subject to total annihilation. If G'd's oath would refer only to using water as the agent to destroy earth or mankind, the whole oath would not be worth very much. This is one reason why the Talmud quotes Bileam as convincing Pharaoh that G'd's oath also included destruction of mankind or earth by fire.

The exact wording of G'd's oath concerned Abraham very deeply when he prayed about the possible salvation of Sodom.