Genesis 1:6

_AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE A FIRMAMENT IN THE MIDST OF THE WATERS, AND LET IT DIVIDE THE WATERS FROM THE WATERS._ Let there be a firmament, х_ RAAQIYA`_ (H7549)] - expansion. Our version, following the Septuagint and Vulgate, uses the word "firmament," which gives an erroneous view of the meaning of the Hebrew term, which comes from a root that signifies to 'beat,' to 'spread out.' If the Hebrew word, in the primary sense of 'a thing beat out,' did point, as many allege, to a metallic plate, it was, like the Greek _ STEREOOMA_ (G4733), or the Latin firmamentum, to express the idea of stability and of splendour, not at all of a solid arch, and was used to designate the blue ethereal vault above us, corresponding with a common, familiar use of the word 'heaven.' Any expressions that are found in Scripture conveying the idea of a solid, permanent dome are used on

6_Let there be a firmament _(58) The work of the second day is to provide an empty space around the circumference of the earth, that heaven and earth may not be mixed together. For since the proverb, ‘to mingle heaven and earth,’ denotes the extreme of disorder, this distinction ought to be regarded as of great importance. Moreover, the word רקיע (_rakia_) comprehends not only the whole region of the air, but whatever is open above us: as the word heaven is sometimes understood by the Latins. Thus the arrangement, as well of the heavens as of the lower atmosphere, is called רקיע (_rakia_) without discrimination between them, but sometimes the word signifies both together sometimes one part only, as will appear more plainly in our progress. I know not why the Greeks have chosen to render the word ςτερέωμ

6-13 The earth was emptiness, but by a word spoken, it became full of God's riches, and his they are still. Though the use of them is allowed to man, they are from God, and to his service and honour they must be used. The earth, at his command, brings forth grass, herbs, and fruits. God must have the glory of all the benefit we receive from the produce of the earth. If we have, through grace, an interest in Him who is the Fountain, we may rejoice in him when the streams of temporal mercies are dried up....

Verse Genesis 1:6. _AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE A FIRMAMENT_] Our translators, by following the _firmamentum_ of the Vulgate, which is a translation of the στερεωμα of the Septuagint, have deprived this passage of all sense and meaning. The Hebrew word רקיע _rakia_, from רקע _raka_, to _spread out as the curtains of a tent or_ _pavilion_, simply signifies an _expanse_ or _space_, and consequently that circumambient space or expansion separating the clouds, which are in the higher regions of it, from the seas, c., which are below it. This we call the _atmosphere, the orb of atoms_ or inconceivably small particles but the word appears to have been used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and to include the whole of the planetary vortex, or the space which is occupied by the whole _solar system_....

- IV. The Second Day 6. רקיע _rāqı̂ya‛_, “expanse;” στερέωμα _stereōma_, רקע _rāqa‛_, “spread out by beating, as leaf gold.” This expanse was not understood to be solid, as the fowl is said to fly on the face of it Genesis 1:21. It is also described as luminous Daniel 12:3, and as a monument of divine power Psalms 150:1. 7. עשׂה _‛__āśâh_ “work on,” “make out of already existing materials.” The second act of creative power bears u

EXPOSITION GENESIS 1:6 _Day_ _two_._ _The work of this day consisted in the formation of that immense gaseous ocean, called the atmosphere, by which the earth is encircled. AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE A FIRMAMENT (_rakiya_,_ _an expand, from _rakah_,_ _to beat out; LXX; στερεìωμα;_ _Vulgate, _firmamentum_)_ _IN THE MIDST OF THE WATERS. To affirm with Knobel, Gesenius, and others that the Hebrews supposed the atmospheric heavens to be a metallic substance (Exodus 24:10), a vault fixed on the water-flood which surrounds the earth (Proverbs 8:27), firm as a

AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE A FIRMAMENT IN THE MIDST OF THE WATERS,.... On which the Spirit of God was sitting and moving, Genesis 1:2 part of which were formed into clouds, and drawn up into heaven by the force of the body of fire and light already produced; and the other part left on the earth, not yet gathered into one place, as afterwards: between these God ordered a "firmament to be", or an "expanse" v; something stretched out and spread like a curtain, tent, or canopy: and to this all those passages of Scripture refer, which speak of the stretching out of the heavens, as this firmament or expanse is afterwards called; see Psalms 104:2 and by it is meant the air, as it is rendered by the Targum on Psalms 19:1 we c

Genesis 1:1. _In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth._ When that «beginning» was, we cannot tell. It may have been long ages before God fitted up this world for the abode of man, but it was not self-existent; it was created by God, it sprang from the will and the word of the all-wise Creator. Genesis 1:2. _And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep._ When God began to arrange this world in order, it was shrouded in darkness, and it had been reduced to what we call, for want of a better name, «chaos.» This is just the condition of every soul of man when God begins to deal with him in his grace; it is formless, and empty of all good things. «There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is

FIRMAMENT Literally, expanse (that is, of waters beneath, of vapour above)....

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE CREATION ACCOUNT The manner in which the book of Genesis begins leaves no doubt that it is the revelation of God. The creation account is historical truth. The question is how was it given? An answer to this question claims that the Jews obtained the account from the records of other nations concerning the origin of the universe and that they altered it according to their own religious ideas. This is an impossibility. The ancient heathen nations considered God and the universe one and had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of God independent of the universe, nor did they know anything of a creation of the world. Here is something wholly different from all the theories, mythologies and other inventions of the human race. How then was it given? By revelation of God is the only answer. No human being knew anything about the origin of the heavens and t...