What did God create on the second day of creation?

On the second day a "firmament," or "expanse," was called into being. As a result of this a further division took place; not now of light from darkness but of waters from waters. God called this expanse, Heaven. In verse 1 "the heaven" indicates what we should call the stellar heavens. In verse 8 the atmospheric heavens are indicated. There it is that immense quantities of water float above in the form of clouds, divided from the far greater quantities that lie on the earth beneath. As the result of the work of the second day the earth was surrounded with an atmosphere. It was accomplished by His word, "God said … and it was so."

7, 8. Then the atmospheric heavens, the actual blue sky was formed; waters above - the treasure house for the rain, and below - the heaven or firmament. That was the second day; there was again evening and morning - the disappearance of the light, and its reappearance.

13 - 9. Next the sea is made by withdrawing the waters from the surface of a part of the earth, and causing the dry land to appear. Nothing was made the second day, i.e., any new thing; the separation of waters above and below, leaving the heavens free as a firmament between, was not a new substance created, hence it is not said to be very good.

The second stage of this divine work is the making of the "firmament," or "expanse," by which a separation of the waters is effected. Strangely misunderstood as it has been by some, it is, one would think, self-evidently, the formation of the atmospheric "heavens," which draw up now (as they have been doing ever since) out of the deep below, waters which, purged of their saltness, become the still inexplicably balanced clouds.

We may now pass on to look briefly at the following days. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven."

How comes this? It is another difficulty at first sight. Did we not hear of heaven in the first verse? To be sure we did; and here we are told of heaven again. What then — contradiction? Not in the least degree; only another heaven — that is all. And is this, then, not true? Why this other heaven? Because man was about to be made. The circumambient atmosphere, extending upwards too, was essential not only to man's existence here below, but to vegetable life, to the due activity of light and heat, as well as to all forms of animated existence.

We find under the second day, then, the lower heaven. And that this is not a merely Jewish idea, but of God, is perfectly certain from the New Testament; for there we read how Paul was caught up (at any rate "a man in Christ," who, I have no doubt, was Paul) into the third heaven. We can easily understand, therefore, that at the beginning God made two heavens, and that in this case He made the lowest one. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Here we find He made another, man being about to be made. And this is called heaven too. They are all called the heavens. There is the heaven of His presence; the heaven of the stars, planets, and other astronomical objects; and the atmospheric heaven necessary for man and living things here below.

But a little must be said of the second day. These are the terms: — "And God said, Let an expanse be in the midst of the waters, and dividing be between waters and waters. And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that [are] under the expanse and the waters that [are] above the expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day" (vers. 6-8).

There is no more ground for conceiving this to be the first creation of atmospheric heavens than we saw in the case of light on the first day. The absolute language of creating is avoided in both cases. As there had been light in the long ages of geology when not only plants but animals marine and terrestrial abounded, suited to the systems that contained them, so an atmosphere was requisite and, no doubt, was furnished of God with every provision for their sustenance till a new condition succeeded by God's power. That which now girdles the earth may not have been altogether alike for the varying states of vegetable and animated being long before man existed, to say nothing of the azoic periods before either. They had each an environment adapted by the Creator of all. The remains in successive strata indicate an admirable suitability for the then flora and fauna, quite different from the Adamic earth and its inhabitants, in some of which it may be doubted if man could have lived, as he did not in fact.

Second Day — The Firmament, or expanse, is here seen, which spreads between the earth-heavens and the waters beneath. As yet, nothing is upon the surface of the world except the waters covering all. God makes a division now between these waters and the vapors above. There is marked distinction between them. The waters upon the earth are the salt, bitter waters of the ocean; while those above, though drawn from the ocean, are perfectly fresh. It is beautiful to see how these waters in vast and inconceivable volume are suspended in those "balancing clouds" which lift them above the earth and yet hold them in connection with it, ever ready to pour down in beneficent rain the treasures which they hold. Science here again has ceased to sneer at the wondrous exactness and beauty of all this. It is a true picture of what the expanse of the atmosphere is, a separation between the waters on the earth and in the heavens, not a hard and fast line; indeed, one that can be filled, it may be, with vapor, and yet which in general arches itself above us, making a true separation, as Scripture here describes it.

The spiritual meaning of this is not difficult to ascertain. We saw in the first day the light manifesting an ocean of chaotic ruin. In this second day, we have manifested the separation that exists between the ruin of the fallen nature and the new life which is from God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Here we have the two natures which are in the believer. The fallen one, dead, unproductive, at enmity with God; but lifted up, distinct from this, and yet in connection with it we have a new life which has, we might say, been constructed through divine alchemy from the world, lifted up above it now to control and pour out its beneficence upon the new man, making him fruitful. Fruitfulness is not yet apparent, but God sees the result of His work. If this truth is seen, difficulties otherwise inexplicable are solved. The extravagant claims of perfectionism are seen both to be impossible and unnecessary; while the undoubted presence of evil still remaining in the child of God is fully accounted for. The old nature is not eliminated. It is, however, not that which characterizes the new-born soul.

The second immense fact in creation was the formation of the firmament, which divided the upper from the lower waters. This firmament is the visible heaven, the atmospheric expanse; and this prepares the earth for the following glorious events that were to take place upon the globe.

Then the world had light, but it was still waste, and covered with water. God said: "Let there be a firmament" (air) "in the midst of the waters" to divide the waters into the upper clouds and lower seas. God called the air "Heaven", and we call it the sky. There was evening and there was morning, the second day. The water in the upper part we call clouds. The lower part is called Seas, Rivers, Lakes, and Ponds. As God divided the light from the darkness, so now He divided what was below from what was above, as God always divides good from bad. People do not do that. God tells those who call Him Lord, to go away from what is bad. (2 Tim. 2:19). God said: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear." God called this land 'Earth' and the mass of waters, 'Sea.' God saw that it was good. God said that grass should come on the earth, and vegetables that have seeds, and also fruit trees, and it was so. God saw that this was good; there was evening and morning, — the third day.

At a fit moment the question of the mammoth, etc., co-existing with the musk-ox and other surviving quadrupeds may be briefly examined. But on the face of the argument it is plain that there is no more difficulty in conceiving God might renew some previously existing plants and animals for Adam's earth, than in causing light again to act on the first day and the atmosphere on the second. The work of the first day, perfectly if not exclusively consistent with an instantaneous exertion of the divine will, illustrates and confirms that of the second day. Scripture places the description of ver. 2 at some time before these days commence. Light acted first after that disorder, and according to the earth's revolution on its axis. Next day the atmospheric heavens, so essential to light, sound, and electricity, to vegetation and animal life, were called (or rather recalled) to their functions after that confusion which destroyed them in ways beyond our ken.

Assuredly this renewal was no matter of a long age of gradual process, but a work to which God assigned a separate day, though to Him abstractedly a moment had sufficed. As it is, man's attention was impressively drawn to His considerate and almighty goodness Who then separated "waters from waters," which otherwise had filled space above the earth with continual vapour and without that due mixture of gases which constitutes the air essential to all life on the globe. To its machinery with other causes by divine constitution we owe the formation of clouds and the fall of rain as well as evaporation; to its refractive and reflective powers, that modification of light which adds incalculably to beauty no less than to the utility of the creation: a black sky had otherwise cast its constant pall over the earth. Even had dry land by another fiat been disengaged from the waters, without this encompassing elastic fluid, vapours would not have been absorbed nor have fallen as now; dew had ceased; fountains and rivers if formed had wasted away; water had enormously prevailed; and if dry land had survived anywhere, it must have been a dry arid waste with neither animal life nor a blade of grass. But enough; these are not the pages in which to seek the physical methods of creative beneficence.

It is now generally known, as it had long been laid down by the most competent Hebraists before modern science existed, that "expanse" is the real force of the original word, instead of "firmament" which came to us through the Latin Vulgate, as it seems due to the Greek Septuagint. Possibly these Jewish translators in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus may have succumbed here as elsewhere to Gentile ideas or at least phrases. And a great Rabbinical scholar, a Christian teacher, has given his opinion that the Greek version employs the word (στερέωμα) in the sense of an ethereal or fine subtle orb, and in no way of a solid permanent vault as rationalists love to assume, basing it on etymology and figurative usage. The aim is obvious, the wish father to the thought. Excluding God from the written word as from creation, deifying nature and exalting fallen man (more especially of the nineteenth century), they gladly depreciate the text by citing "windows" and "doors," "pillars" and "foundations" as if meant literally. Now the usage of the word even in the chapter itself (vers. 15, 17, 20, 28) sufficiently proves that the word conveys the idea of the open transparent sky, whatever may have been the misunderstanding of the reader at any given time.

Hence it may be noted that the Authorised and Revised English Versions give "the air" as the equivalent of "the heavens" in ver. 28 as elsewhere. It is really the expanse, including the atmospheric heavens in the lower part of which birds fly. A solid vault is out of the question. The true derivation seems rather from a word expressing elevation, like the source of our own "heaven"; but even if drawn from the idea of beating or hammering out, who knows not that words may and do acquire a force etherealised according to the object designated, wholly above their material origin? The scriptures really present the heavens as spread out, and the earth hung upon nothing, nowhere giving countenance to the grossness of the stars fastened like brass nails on a metallic vault. Sceptical ill-will likes that it should seem so; but it is unworthy slander. Even Dathe who was free enough gives "spatium extensum," as did learned Jews generally long before and since.

"The waters above" consist of that enormous supply of vapour which fills the clouds and falls as rain, hail, or snow. "The waters below" covered the earth as yet, but were shortly to form seas, when the dry land appeared next day. It is ignorance therefore to say, in the face of a crowd of scriptures, that the waters above imply a permanent solid vault like a shower bath. The Hebrews could see the movements of many heavenly bodies instead of regarding all as fixtures. But even had they been as dull as rationalism is invidious, our concern is with the divine record, the accuracy of which irritates hostile minds who would hail the least flaw with satisfaction. Scripture abides; science changes and corrects itself from age to age. As to figures, "bottles" are used no less than "pillars," and a "tent" or "curtain" as well as "windows" and "doors." They are all strikingly expressive. Only the stupid or malicious could take any of them in the letter, to dishonour the scriptures.

This publication is scarcely the suited place, nor does the writer pretend, to draw out adequately the wondrous and beneficent functions of the separated waters or seas and of the dry land, any more than of the light and of the atmospheric heavens, on which a little has been said. But a few words here may confirm, what was remarked as to the first and the second days, that the record speaks with immediate propriety of God's constituting the earth for the human race. By no means does it intimate particulars of the long periods before man when those successive changes are observable, which laid down vast stores for his future use and fitted the earth's progressively built-up crust, the rich field of geological research. One can admire the wisdom which did not encumber the Bible with the details of natural science. Rocks crystalline and stratified are before men's eyes, who can reason on the fossils they embalm. Scripture alone avoids the universal heathen idea of a primitive chaos, and the philosophic error of an eternal universe or even eternal matter. Scripture, on the contrary, has carefully enunciated God's creation at an undefined moment, "in the beginning," not merely of crude materials, but of the heavens and the earth, without a word about their denizens. It also makes known the fact that the earth was subjected to revolution so complete that before the Adamic state of things divine power was needed to cause light to act in a diurnal way, as well as to order the atmosphere, and from a previous and universal overspread of waters the appearance of dry land, on which God began the plants or vegetable kingdom for man.

The Hebrew word translated “firmament” would be better given as “expanse,” as it is marked in the reference column in some editions of our Bibles. The word, “firmament” comes from the Vulgate translation of the Bible in Latin by Jerome, and is unfortunate. The idea came to him from the ancients. Greek and Roman philosophies described heaven as forming a solid vault over the earth. Aristotle’s (B.C. 384-322) description was “a sphere studded with stars.” The little girl, who imagined the stars were gimlet holes let into the floor of heaven through which the glory of heaven shone, was not far removed from the learned philosopher in her ideas.

The meaning of the passage is plain. Up to now the chaotic earth was enswathed in water and enwrapt in darkness. Then God took in hand to reconstruct the earth. He decreed that there should not only be water on the earth, but by evaporation there should be water in the skies in the form of clouds. There was to be water below the expanse, that is on the earth; and water above the expanse, that is as seen in the clouds in the sky.