I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Ver. 13. I do set my bow in the cloud, &c.] There it was before, but not till now as a token of the covenant; as still it is applied for a sign of grace from God to his Church. Revelation 4:3 ; Rev 10:1 Eze 1:28 It is planted in the clouds, as if man were shooting at God, and not God at man. This bow with both ends downward, and back to heaven, must needs be an emblem of mercy; for he that shooteth, holdeth the back of the bow from him. Of God's bow we read, but not of his arrows, saith Ambrose on this text. "He hath bent his bow, and made it ready," saith David; but if "he ordain his arrows," it is not but "against the persecutors". Psa 7:12-13 If he shoot at his servants, it is as Jonathan shot at his friend David; 2Sa 20:20 to warn them, not to wound them. They are "arrows of the Lord's deliverance," 2Ki 13:17 which therefore he multiplies, that they may "compass him about with songs of deliverance". Psa 32:7 If he "bend his bow like an enemy," Lam 2:4 yet in wrath he remembereth mercy.