Genesis 15:1-21
Abram falls into a deep sleep while a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass alone between the halved animals. The covenant is cut without his participation. One verse later, Yahweh reckons his faith as righteousness — a half-verse Paul will quote four times in Romans 4 alone. Gen 15 is the locus of the unilateral covenant, the chapter where God himself walks under the self-curse, and the OT verse from which the New Testament builds its entire grammar of grace.
Genesis 9:8-29
Genesis 9:8-29 is the canonical first iteration of the covenant-sign formula and the textbook test case of how the Hebrew lexicon resists training-data overlay. H7198 qeshet is a weapon-bow (76 OT uses, 94.7% war or hunting bow) — God hangs his weapon in the cloud, and the bow-in-cloud functions as the covenant's visible guarantee. The Ham-saw question turns on a lexical distinction the lexicon makes plain (ra'ah ervah vs galah ervah), and the curse at Gen 9:25 falls on Canaan, not Ham — MT, SP, and LXX all agree on the curse-recipient.