The Rainbow of Creation

I am a writer of poetry and often as I read I lean toward finding the deeper meanings of what I think the author might be trying to convey. Sometimes I'm right. More though, I'm not. That's life. This is certainly one of those times, but it's still interesting.

Sometime ago I was simultaneously contemplating a few stories, as I often do, and an idea hit me. The rainbow that God put in the sky as a sign for Noah is a symbol in colour for the creation story. More accurately, if we can get the horse back in front of the cart, the story of creation mirrors the colours of the rainbow. Weird I know. I told you I read into stuff.

The colours of the rainbow, as we all know, go like this: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. To make this work all we have to do is reverse the order and think about it from the inside out. We'll start with violet and end with red.

Now the creation story, again as we all know, is from the Pentateuch; book one chapter one. If you'll allow me to distill it a little as we go;

In verse 1 the story starts with God making the heaven and the earth. But it's not what we, the modern English speaking world, have envisioned. In the Hebrew the words 'heaven' (hashamayim) and 'earth' is (ha'aretz) are really describing here that God made on the first day, the divide between the physical realm and the eternal. He made the room for everything he was about to make. Then he filled it with all the necessary pieces of the puzzle.

In verse 2 we have a poetic explanation of how the earth had not yet been formed and the dark and lifeless waters where all that were. So between verse one and two there was the darkest and coldest of colours, Black. Yes, I know there is no black in the rainbow. Just stick with me.

In verse 3 God creates light. The first colour, the symbolic colour of space, is born. It is that colour we see in the dim light of evening when the stars fill the sky. What better colour to describe a void of waters then, Violet.

In verse 6 the next thing God creates is the firmament (rawkee'ah) or a layer of space and 'air' to separate the layers of waters. So now we have in verse 7-8 heaven or space and dark lifeless waters that would be for earth symbiotically represented by Indigo.

In verse 9 the continents is 'yaQuawu' or “gathered”, as well as the oceans being formed. The oceans and seas being our next colour, Blue. Then it says that in that same day he populated the land with “grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself”, bringing us to Green, 'esev' in the text.

In verse 14 is the creation of the sun, the moon and the stars. It's a bit odd how he created light days before any of the celestial bodies necessary for such to exist in this universe. I think there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding of the cosmos here that lent itself to putting the story together in a funky way (understatement). But that's not what matters. What matters is that here we see the next two colours of the rainbow; Orange and Yellow for the sun, moon, stars, and all the other heavenly bodies (the m'orot and otot).

In verses 20 – 28 is the last and finally colour which would be Red. Red for the life blood of all the living creatures from the fish of the sea, to the beasts of the field, to man himself.

I know that there are a million an one differing ideas on the exact translation. I tried to be vague for the aide of my analogy, so there you have it, the creation story told in colour. But not just any colours, the colours of the rainbow and in order. I think that if the same man or group of men wrote the Pentateuch, they relied heavily on the imagery of the rainbow. I think there might be more to the symbolism of the rainbow then just a sign that God wouldn't flood the earth again. Maybe that's why the rainbow was used in such a way; the rainbow symbolized creation itself? What if they wrote these stories the same way I thought about them when I made this connection...simultaneously?

I've also been told I'm nuts. So...
P.S. I'm staying neutral on the “truth” of the stories of creation and the flood. You guys can duke that one out amongst yourselves!
P.S.S. Sorry if I screwed up any of the Hebrew.

Not as much the rainbow being creation, but the rainbow showing our octave. Each color represents a different density and all of them are REPRESENTED in your chakras. USE THEM.

There's no way to tell really if this is just a coincidence or if this was meant to be, but it is a really beautiful way to look at it!

Perhaps the rainbow doesn't just symbolize God's initial creation, but a new creation... in the sense that after the flood, humans were starting anew...

reply to post by Philodemus


Before modern science, the ancients believed that colors came from heaven and they were not natural to earth.

reply to post by Philodemus


This isn't anything new, see the message that I sent you...

If you'd like to know more about common interputations, or even my own theory, go ahead and respond...