4.1.4 Gen. 9: The Covenant with Noah

 (berit: covenant) is one of the most important terms of Genesis  and becomes with the Sinai covenant the leitmotif of the entire OT (see  below on Gen. 17). This covenant has a sign: “my bow”. קשת (käschät) is not a sign of lukewarm earthly – heavenly harmony, but a weapon: the war bow. God wants to show people with it that he has put aside his weapon and that mankind now has nothing to fear. The first word of God about this eon is a blessing! 

The severity of Noah’s curse hardly corresponds to the deed described.  Here, probably out of shame, something was not said that the hearer  might have associated (namely, “what his youngest son had done to  him”: 9:24, according to vRad).