The Terms at Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee walked into the parlor of Wilmer McLean's farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Civil War had devoured over 600,000 lives. The land was scarred, families shattered, and the surviving soldiers on both sides were hollow-eyed with exhaustion. Lee expected harsh terms from Ulysses S. Grant — confiscation, imprisonment, perhaps worse.

Instead, Grant wrote something astonishing. Confederate soldiers could go home. Officers could keep their sidearms. Any man who owned a horse or mule could take it home for spring planting. There would be no trials, no reprisals. When Union soldiers began firing celebratory cannons, Grant ordered them stopped immediately. "The war is over," he said. "The rebels are our countrymen again."

Grant asked nothing in return. He imposed no conditions the defeated army had to meet first. The mercy was unilateral — extended before it was requested, secured by Grant's authority alone.

This is the shape of the covenant in Genesis 9. After the floodwaters recede and the earth still reeks of judgment, God speaks — not to demand, but to promise. Nine times He says "I" in this passage. I establish My covenant. I will remember. I set My bow in the cloud. Noah is never asked to sign anything. The rainbow is not humanity's pledge to do better. It is God's own reminder to Himself, a unilateral promise hung in the sky by the One whose word alone makes it unbreakable.