God concludes his covenant speech to Noah: this is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth. The restatement closes the covenant section of chapter 9 as it opened it — with God's direct, declarative speech. The covenant is formal, complete, and binding. The simplicity of this closing statement — this is the sign — leaves no ambiguity about what the rainbow means and what it is for. John 3:16 declares God's love for the world in a similar economy of words that carries enormous weight in its simplicity. 2 Peter 1:4 describes the very great and precious promises God has given — and the Noahic covenant is the most universal of those promises. The application: when God says 'this is' about something, the simplicity is not poverty of meaning but abundance of certainty. This is the sign. Not 'this might represent' or 'you could think of this as' — this is. Receive what God declares with the same simplicity with which he declares it.

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