T. Q#T has not the meaning of a mere arc, it always means the war-bow.  And what is most important of all, the Arabs also always take the iris to be the war-bow of God; Kuzah shoots arrows from his bow, and then hangs it up in the clouds (D.  M. Z. 1849, p. 200 seq.).  With the Jews and their kin, the rainbow has retained far into Christian times a remarkably near relation to the Deity.  It is singular that the Edomites have a God named Kaus, as well as Kuzah. *************************************

i.e., the law of ch. ix. 1-7, a modification of the first ordinance given to Adam (i.229, 30) for the world after the flood which still subsists, is for the Priestly Code the crown, the end, the substance, of the whole narrative.  Its interest in the law always completely absorbs the simple interest of its story.

We have also to remark that in this source vengeance for the spilling of blood is not the affair of the relatives but the affair of God; and that it is demanded for man as man, whether master or slave, and no money compensation allowed.  The words sound simple and solemn:  “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed:  for in the image of God made He man.”  Yet the religious notion of HUMANITY underlying this sentence is not ancient with the Hebrews any more than with other nations; cf.  Genesis iv. 15, 24, and Exodus xxi. 20 seq. 1

******************************************* 1.  De Wette, Beitrage, p. 57.  The religious notion of the people is old. ********************************************

The ark lands, according to Q, on Mount Ararat.  In JE, as we have it, no landing-place is named.  But this is not original, as mythic geography belongs to the Jehovist in all other passages where it occurs.  In Q the primitive history is never localised, the whole earth is given to man for a dwelling from the first.  In JE, on the contrary, they live first in the land of Eden far to the East, and presumably high up in the North; expelled from Eden they come to the land of Nod, where Cain builds the town of Enoch, and departing from this district, which is still far to the East, they settle in the land of Shinar, at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, where they build the town of Babel.  Shinar is the point of departure of that history of the world which is no longer merely mythical, it is the home of the present human race.  In this point the contrast is very noticeable between the local definiteness of the Jehovist legend, which lends it the character of the idyllic, and the vague generalness of the other.  In Shinar, according to JE, Genesis xi. 1-9, men are still all together, and they desire to remain together there.  Not to be scattered, they build a great city, which is to hold them all; and to make themselves a name, they add to it a high tower which is to reach heaven.  Jehovah, perceiving in these attempts the danger of further progress in the same direction, comes down