What was the firmament in the Bible?
The word "firmament" appears in older English Bibles for what God made on the second day of Genesis 1, dividing the waters and named "Heaven." Behind that one English word lie two questions: what did the Hebrew actually say, and does it describe a solid dome over a flat world, as critics of the Bible have claimed?
The Word Behind the Translation
Commentators are agreed that "firmament" is not what the original says. The Hebrew word carries the sense of something stretched or spread out, and the harder-sounding English term entered through the ancient Greek and Latin translations.
William KellyIt is now generally known, as competent Hebrew scholars had long said 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, and seems to be due to the Greek Septuagint.
The mistranslation carried a whole worldview with it, borrowed from outside Scripture:
A J PollockThe word "firmament" comes from the Vulgate, Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, and it 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 description was "a sphere studded with stars."
Not a Solid Vault
Since the Hebrew means an expanse, the picture of stars nailed to a metal ceiling is read into the text, not out of it. The figures of speech used elsewhere in Scripture are not meant to be taken literally.
William KellyThe scriptures really present the heavens as spread out, and the earth hung upon nothing. Nowhere do they support the crude idea of stars fastened like brass nails on a metal vault. Sceptical ill-will likes it to seem so; but it is an unworthy slander.
What the passage actually names is the everyday sky:
J. N. DarbyThe expanse is formed — for a Jew, the first heaven, as we see it. God set it over the earth. It is spoken of just as we speak of it. Rakia is an expanse, but no definition of it is given. "Firmament" is merely a word taken from the Septuagint and the Latin. God produced what we see daily, this blue sky over our heads, which we call sky and heaven.
The Waters Above and Below
The expanse is defined by what it separates. Writers identify the waters above as cloud and vapour, and the waters below as those still covering the earth.
F. B. HoleOn the second day a "firmament," or "expanse," was called into being. As a result, 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" means what we would call the stellar heavens. In verse 8 the atmospheric heavens are meant. There it is that immense quantities of water float above in the form of clouds, divided from the far greater quantities lying on the earth beneath.
One writer draws out the difference in kind between the two bodies of water, and how the upper ones are held:
Samuel RidoutThe 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 unimaginable volume, are suspended in those "balancing clouds" which lift them above the earth and yet keep them connected with it, ever ready to pour down in beneficial rain the treasures they hold.
A Second Heaven, Prepared for Man
Genesis 1 speaks of heaven in verse 1 and again in verse 8. That is not a contradiction but a narrowing of focus, and the reason given is man.
William KellyDid we not hear of heaven in the first verse? To be sure we did; and here we are told of heaven again. What then — a contradiction? Not in the least; only another heaven, that is all. Why this other heaven? Because man was about to be made. The surrounding atmosphere, extending upwards too, was essential not only to man's existence here below, but to plant life, to the proper working of light and heat, and to all forms of living creatures.
Commentators differ on whether this was the first forming of an atmosphere or the restoring of one after the disorder described in verse 2; Kelly argues for the latter, while others simply speak of it as being made.
How the Rest of Scripture Uses the Word
The same Hebrew word covers more than one range of sky, and it reappears in later books.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe Hebrew word is raqia, meaning "expanse." It is used for the visible sphere overhead, and also simply for the air in which the birds fly… The Psalmist speaks of them as distinct: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1; Ps. 150:1). The living creatures in Ezekiel 1 move beneath the expanse.
That witness above our heads is one no human hand can spoil:
Hamilton SmithWhile creation in all its parts declares the eternal power and divinity of God, it is striking that the writer of Psalm 19 speaks of parts of creation that man has no power to touch or corrupt. He speaks of the unceasing procession of day and night, and of the perpetual circuit of the sun.
Summary
- Expanse — the Hebrew raqia means something stretched out; "firmament" reached English through the Greek and Latin versions, carrying a foreign idea with it.
- Not solid — Scripture describes the heavens as spread out and the earth hung on nothing; the metal dome belongs to ancient philosophy, not to the text.
- Divides — its work is to separate the waters above, held in the clouds, from the waters below.
- For man — this atmospheric heaven was set in place as the earth was being made ready for human life, plants and animals.
- Declares — the same sky that sustains us also preaches, showing God's handiwork day and night in a language every nation hears.