Noah’s Sacrifice (1847)

Daniel Maclise’s 1847 Noah’s Sacrifice shows the scene from Genesis 9 in which Noah offers sacrifice to God upon leaving the ark, to which God offers reply:

I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.  It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 13-15New King James Version

The painting is large but cramped; all but Noah seem to be afraid. While Noah was in some respects a second Adam, he too bequeathed his descendants with his own sinful nature, dooming them to the inevitable cycle of sin and death. Only Christ Jesus, the final Adam, could release Noah’s folk, freeing them from the first man’s dreadful inheritance.