What is the Judeo-Christian symbolic meaning of the rainbow?

Answer 1

God once destroyed everything on earth with a great flood caused by constant raining and only the people and animals on Noah's ark were saved. God promised his people from then on he would never destroy the earth by flooding again. To show this after it rains you sometimes see a rainbow. That is the sign God promised his people so they would not fear another world-wide flood. "And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." Genesis 9:11-12