Genesis 6:18

6:18 but I will confirm 1  my covenant with you. You will enter 2  the ark – you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Genesis 9:13

9:13 I will place 3  my rainbow 4  in the clouds, and it will become 5  a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth.

Genesis 9:17

9:17 So God said to Noah, “This is the guarantee of the covenant that I am confirming between me and all living things 6  that are on the earth.”

Genesis 15:18

15:18 That day the Lord made a covenant 7  with Abram: “To your descendants I give 8  this land, from the river of Egypt 9  to the great river, the Euphrates River –

1 tn The Hebrew verb וַהֲקִמֹתִי (vahaqimoti) is the Hiphil perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive (picking up the future sense from the participles) from קוּם (qum, “to rise up”). This may refer to the confirmation or fulfillment of an earlier promise, but it is more likely that it anticipates the unconditional promise made to humankind following the flood (see Gen 9:9, 11, 17).

2 tn The perfect verb form with vav (ו) consecutive is best understood as specific future, continuing God’s description of what will happen (see vv. 17-18a).

3 tn The translation assumes that the perfect verbal form is used rhetorically, emphasizing the certainty of the action. Other translation options include “I have placed” (present perfect; cf. NIV, NRSV) and “I place” (instantaneous perfect; cf. NEB).

4 sn The Hebrew word קֶשֶׁת (qeshet) normally refers to a warrior’s bow. Some understand this to mean that God the warrior hangs up his battle bow at the end of the flood, indicating he is now at peace with humankind, but others question the legitimacy of this proposal. See C. Westermann, Genesis, 1:473, and G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:196.

5 tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here has the same aspectual function as the preceding perfect of certitude.

6 tn Heb “all flesh.”

7 tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

8 tn The perfect verbal form is understood as instantaneous (“I here and now give”). Another option is to understand it as rhetorical, indicating certitude (“I have given” meaning it is as good as done, i.e., “I will surely give”).

sn To your descendants I give this land. The Lord here unconditionally promises that Abram’s descendants will possess the land, but he does not yet ratify his earlier promises to give Abram a multitude of descendants and eternal possession of the land. The fulfillment of those aspects of the promise remain conditional (see Gen 17:1-8) and are ratified after Abraham offers up his son Isaac (see Gen 22:1-19). For a fuller discussion see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 35-54.

9 sn The river of Egypt is a wadi (a seasonal stream) on the northeastern border of Egypt, not to the River Nile.