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HAROLD - I have read somewhere that there will be no rainbow for one year before the melinum. Am I correct?
JOEL - The sign of the rainbow is discussed in detail as God speaks to Noah after the flooding of the earth was completed:
"This shall be the token of the covenant I make between me and you, and for every living creature with you, for perpetual generations; I will set my bow in the cloud; and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." (Gen 9: 12-13)
Apparently the rainbow is being shown for the first time and that for some reason unknown to us it had not been manifest before. The rainbow is a sign of a covenant that was made between God and Noah or mankind as described in the following verses:
"And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto thy father Enoch; that, when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself.
And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy;
And the general assembly of the church of the firstborn shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth and shall have place until the end come. And this is mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch" (JST, Gen. 9:21-23).
So it is a sign to remind us of the second coming and Millenial reign when God will send again the City of Enoch out of heaven and be with men again on earth.
The above scriptures suggest that there is some relationship between the destruction of the world by water in Noah's day, the destruction by fire in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the placing of the rainbow in the heavens as a token of a covenant that involved both the flood and the Second Coming. (See JST Genesis 9:17-25)
Joseph Smith made some specific statements regarding the day when the rainbow will no longer be seen in his commentary on Matthew Chapter 24 in the New Testament:
"The rainbow is not to be seen. It is a sign of the commencement of famine, pestilence, and so forth, and that the coming of the Messiah is not far distant. So long as you see the rainbow stretching across the heavens, there will be seed time and harvest, and the Son of Man will not come that year. While inquiring of the Lord concerning the end of time, it was made known to me by the Holy Spirit that there should be prosperity, seed time, and harvest every year in which the rainbow was seen. For to that was Noah referred as a surety on this subject. But in the year when the bow was not to be seen would commence desolation, calamity, and distress among the nations, without seed time or harvest.
So long as we see the bow in the cloud, seed time and harvest shall continue that year. When the bow shall cease, then shall come famine, wars, and so forth, after which the sign of the Son of Man shall be seen in heaven.
The Savior will not come this year, nor forty years to come. The bow has been seen in the cloud, and in that year that the bow is seen, seed time and harvest will be. But when the bow ceases to be seen, look out for a famine.
I have asked of the Lord concerning his coming, and while asking, the Lord gave me a sign and said: "In the days of Noah I set a bow in the heavens as a sign and token that in any year that the bow should be seen, the Lord would not come; but there should be seed time [and] harvest during that year. But whenever you see the bow withdraw, it shall be a token that there shall be famine, pestilence, and great distress among the nations." . . . ] (Joseph Smith's Commentary on the Bible)
So I don't believe that one can say it will be exactly one year between the time the rainbow is not seen and the second coming; it's just that in any particular year so long as you see a rainbow the second coming won't happen during that year but could happen the next year.
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